Here Comes The Wetware
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
We've barely got the faintest ideas of how to measure some things that would seem really basic. Memory? Perception? Forget it. When using one of these you're basically trying to train your brain to stimulate huge areas to try to get some readout. It happens that we aren't great at this. Even playing a game as basic as Pong is very hard with this type of interface, and it isn't as if we're going to get significantly better at this anytime soon.
Its about as graceful as trying to make your entire leg smash forward in order to press a small delicate button. We can hit things, but when you have lots of small delicate buttons, the resolution isn't going to get much better since we're still smashing blindly.
A huge problem right now with the products coming out of Emotive and similar companies is that the level of noise is enormous and the resolution of the sensors is very poor. As we continue to remove the noise from the data (and come up with better sensors!), we can train better and better models to differentiate these various activities.
One PI working on this project whose work I am familiar with is Mike D'Zmura at UC Irvine. http://cnslab.ss.uci.edu/muri/research.html
Hopefully one or two smart discoveries can give us a nice little leap ahead forward until we have a better brain model to work with- bringing the technology to at least a semi-usable level since as it stands it is pretty much a novelty at best.
EEG mostly detects scalp, eye, and face muscle activity, and some very gross brain state (such as awake/alert and drowsy). Subjects can get ok performance in demos by confusing this muscle activity with "brain activity", but it's absolutly not a "neural interface".
For anyone else hung up on this, I recommend mentally substituting the term "scalp-eye interface" or "hands-free interface" and focusing on the possibilities instead of the limitations.
That said, there is good work done which puts a lot of effort into actually measuring the non-muscular signal from EEGs and training on that instead. EEGs can capture signal from alpha waves (roughly analogous to alertness as you describe), and researchers have come up with numerous specific responses to watch for. One such example is the P3000 response, corresponding to the reaction a person has when they are shown an object which they were picturing in their head (a target).
There are numerous other techniques, many dealing with predicting a type of pattern by looking for activity coming from the corresponding area of the brain. If the sensors and algorithms are written correctly, EEG can absolutely be a neural interface, although one with quite a lot of noise. Done poorly, it can be entirely swamped by the physical motions you describe.
I don't think it actually read your brain activity, I think it was more muscle control dressed up, but it sorta worked.
Edit- Link to some info on the device. It did in fact work by muscle activity. http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/2600/mindlink...
Idk, I feel like with practice you could get pretty good at using it. But here it has a $300 price tag, looks like I will be waiting for someone else to get after those ideas.
So I was at WonderWorks < http://wonderworkspcb.com/index.php > in early November, and they have a litle game that works based on your brain waves. You put a headband with metal nodes on your head, and it moves a ball forward based on how calm you are. You sit down across from someone and relax as much as possible, and whoever is the calmest gets the ball closer to the goal.
(edit: I found the page for the "mindball" game here: http://wonderworkspcb.com/Content/37/Mindball_Mental_Challen...)
I have to say, it was very cool. There wasn't as much shock and awe as I'm sure the headsets in this article must inspire, but you can put that down to the primitive interface I was using. It was still extremely interesting, because I really felt like I was "consciously interacting with my own brain". Making something happen just based on how calm you are... I couldn't get the smile off my face afterwards.
(If you're curious, I won every time.)
For example, it's not even clear to me if I need to buy the regular headset (299) or developer headset (500)
So, really, here doesn't come the wetware. But the author is correct to disclaim "if ever." The simple reality is that medicine isn't anywhere near the point yet where sticking something in transcranially is anything apart from a major, expensive, and risky operation (the NYU prof's camera implant is transdermal, but stops well short of the cranium). The popularity of breast augmentations and the like may prove the societal acceptance of elective surgery, but until medicine has advanced to the point where you can do a brain job as routinely and safely as a boob job, it's not going to happen.
(The wetware is your brain.)