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OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA)
Date: 09. September 2008
Type: Hardware Review
Platform: PC
Author: Peter
Rating: 78%
A geek toy that clearly deserves more reviews is the OCZ NIA (Neural-Impulse-Actuator),
simply because so many bought it with completely wrong expectations. But let me start
by emphasizing that I liked the product. It brings a former 2000+$ technology to the
mass market and future versions may become as popular as mp3 players. On the other hand
I don't write reviews to ignore problems/bugs, I write to point them out. (Unless I get
a perfect product into my hands ... those wander directly into the trashcan ... I can't
allow company ambitions to ruin my reputation^^)
So what is the NIA. It is a very simple EEG (Electroencephalograph). EEGs record
from electrodes placed on the scalp electrical activity produced by the brain. These recorded signals
are very weak and different areas produce different signals. Because they are not
from single cells, but from groups thousands, the resolution is quite bad. It is like waiting
3 miles above the football stadium for a wave in the crowd that indicates "something" is going on,
but without to know what it means. The brain continuously produces such waves in a range
of 1-100 HZ. In clinical environments EEGs are for example used to analyze abnormal brain wave activity
like epileptic seizures (and many NIA users used the limited medical capabilities of the device
to self diagnose their brain deaths^^)
While EEGs existed already before 1950, first attempts to build a BCI (Brain-computer interface)
started much later. First research dates back to the 70s, later the military showed interest -
without great success back then. Pressing a finger on the fire button worked better then something like
"nearly fall asleep while moving your nose to the right". While research continued it became clear
that handicapped people were the only ones who really needed this technology. First it took
months to learn how to move a cursor at all, with improved software it can be learned in
minutes today, but don't get me wrong here: opening a browser can take minutes for some, or
hours for you.
The OCZ NIA is based on such a product for handicapped people, created by Brain Actuated Technologies.
It is called Brainfingers (They call the recorded frequency bands brainfingers).
Dr. Andrew Junker researched in the 80s for the U.S. Air Force and later invented
a headband with 3 sensors to control his sailboat. (Sidenote: I guess he found it
annoying to shave his head regularly to place the electrodes^^) Brainfingers was
born, a box and a headband with 3 sensors. A game developer joined in 2002,
so that Brainfingers could replace a mouse, games could be played with it and
many training games were included.
OCZ made a deal with Brain Actuated Technologies. The result is the NIA: A new
more modernized, made in China hardware, together with just the most basic
software for gamers. It is much cheaper now, it costs about 10% of the
Brain Actuated Technologies version. While the software was improved to work gamer needs,
OCZ kept everything as simple as possible to a point where they locked
away 90% of the hardware's potential, so you can not even try to use it as mouse
for example. One reason for that could be that Brain Actuated Technologies
doesn't want to loose its handicapped clients, others claim that everything
that doesn't work without training just frustrates the users and causes
support problems, I don't know (and I was to lazy to ask^^).
Back to the NIA. Lets start with the headband: It must not sit too loose
and no hair must be between the 3 sensors and your forehead, but it
isn't uncomfortable to wear. Anyway, my first impression was that it
looks quite cheap, 2 days later a sharp part fell in love with some
cloths and nearly ruined them, about 6 weeks later the headband broke,
but perhaps that was just bad luck (???^^)
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