Hack your brain: OpenEEG | Hacker News Reader

Hack your brain: OpenEEG

openeeg.sourceforge.net

48 pointsgeuis13 comments

This brought back some good memories for me. (I mean the post only). My final year project at engineering was (an attempt) to build an EEG machine (design). I was not much of a hardware guy, and did it as a last chance (at least for a while) to learn a bit more. The other option in my mind was to may write a RTOS or something but i thought that can happen any time later as well.

Joerg Hansmann (the leading hacker behind this hardware design) was simply awesome and very helpful with sharing his knowledge about the circuit design. (This was late 2001). It was actually the first time i realized the true worth of open source communities, and their role in sharing of knowledge and information.

Thanks geius for posting this, i ought to contribute back to this community for sure, in one way or the other.

I looked into this one time and got scared away the the DIY part of the kit and the warnings that you could seriously injure yourself. :( This will require braver souls than I.

Soldering up a bunch of electrodes, hooking them up to a power source and strapping the whole lot to your head? What could possibly go wrong?

(I'd read this first though: http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/WARNING.html)

I might die.

You might perform a lobotomy equivalent on yourself. That scares me much more than the possibility of dying.

I play with EEG hacking in my spare time. I was shocked to find out that one of the commercial ones has NO protection circuitry in theirs, and after discussing with their engineer they simply recommended to me that I should unplug the laptop from the socket!

I brought this up with one of my engineers, and he said I was getting my knickers in a twist; the likelihood of dying from this truly would be a series of unfortunate events.

So: beware, even with the commercial units. Dissect them to be sure!

Do you wear headphones connected to your computer? Depending on the type you wear, it's only marginally different in my not-entirely-informed opinion.

I tell you this, when there's lightning within 50 miles, I take my headphones off! I've never heard of anybody being injured or dying that way, but the mental image is not one I can tolerate.

I see what you mean. But I don't make my own head phones. :( This is the sort of thing that scared me away: http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/WARNING.html

Neat. Is there any cheap "commercial" ones? If I could delegate the "it-won't-kill-you" testing and pay double, I might go for that.

What I really want though, is that 100x100 tongue point video camera that Hawkins mentions in "On Intelligence".

Hmm, or maybe not. http://science.howstuffworks.com/brainport2.htm That picture's not really sellin' it.

You can get the same input via the auditory channel. All you need is webcam and software, or a Series 60 mobile phone:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3171226.stm

http://www.seeingwithsound.com/

http://www.emotiv.com/

Emotive wishes it were EEG; I remain unconvinced. Same goes for the OCZ nia: http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/ocz_peripherals/nia-ne...

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