Here’s a strange input device you don’t see everyday:
It’s the Lightstone for the game Journey To Wild Divine, sponsored by renowned con-artists and fraudsters: Deepak Chopra, and Andrew Weil.
Although portrayed as some kind of magic crystal, it’s actually a USB biofeedback device that measures your pulse, and how much electricity your skin can conduct. Your skin conducts more electricity when you are stressed (because of sweat). With those two readings your computer can know other things, like: how hard you are exercising, how stressed you are, how relaxed you are, how fit you are, and whether you are telling the truth or lying.
The game it originally came with is basically a relaxation game, where you have to go through a variety of relaxation exercises in order to progress.
I hear the game is actually quite fun and useful, if you can tolerate the anti-science bigotry and outright nonsense.
I just added partial support for the LightStone to GlovePIE 0.42, which I’ll be releasing shortly. Currently GlovePIE 0.42 can only read the Skin Conductance Level, and the “Heart Rate Variance” (it goes up to indicate each pulse). I haven’t added code to detect peaks in the HRV yet, so it can’t tell you more useful information like your pulse rate yet (unless you script it yourself).
Actually GlovePIE already supported measuring your heart-rate, if you had a Concept 2 Rowing Machine (“ergo”) connected to your computer by USB.
But the idea of a device that can measure your mental state for game playing is part of a growing trend these days, with the recent release of no less than 3 competing devices that directly measure brainwaves with an EEG: Neuosky’s ThinkGear, Emotiv’s Epoc, and OCZ’s NIA. I’ll talk about them in a coming post.
Hi carl neet little gadget, But that looks like the jedi mind trainer in a way, with a cheapness to it. I Will take my 3BCI and P5 glove with 2 outher output devices. Though I would like a EKG, compaired to the rest It’s small potatoes. Epoc and OCZ hit my sweet spot as neurosky had no native keymap, but I did notice the outher day they made the SDK free now. When I get a key map for that I’m set P for a few years. Epoc has the higher learning curve and tech level, the OCZ is fastest use out of box to app. , neurosky was the most comfortable but has a design flaw with the arm attachment and a cheap screw they mad hard to get to to fix. It slowly comes unscrewed with each tilt of the arm. Here is a video of OCZ and flight stick on right HAWKS, Epoc and Brain mapper & VR TS keyboard lower middle, P5 and DIVA left. With half the optical distractions set up with a movie and TV. Getting a 7″ touchscreen for left handed input for math and such like google earth when using flight sims for added reality twist. Oh well here is a link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N28VFzW7TEs . As you see still setting up the fun, and still on the learning curve for web cam video capture.
thought I would share http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N28VFzW7TEs
Wow first time it didn’t like me lol. well I would like a EKG but this looks weak, and full of stuff I wouldn’t like mostlikely. I just thought I would share this video of seting up multitasking area. Right is HAWKS with OCZ assisted flight, left is P5 and DIVA, Lower middle is Epoc and brain mapper with VR TS keyboard. 5 screens and outher optical distractions. soon to be a lot more. here is the link to the visual strees test and reaction, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N28VFzW7TEs .Oh and I did this when getting tired so not the best, but it shows some of what I’m intraped in now.
Sorry, first comments for each person get moderated since 90% of them are spam. Also there was a bug caused by a hack I used to get the homepage to display the most recent blog posts.
Did you notice I added Neurosky support to GlovePIE? It hasn’t been tested though, so it probably doesn’t work yet.
Well, considering the review here is from a standard gamer, there’s really no need for me to be the apologist, BUT… the outright nonsense you speak of is what gives a person the edge in the game. You can simply not influence the levels as effectively as a person versed and trained in the subtle body mechanics. Also, you are a bit incorrect in saying the game is for relaxing only. The yang events can be utilized to the degree of an amazing adrenaline rush with the proper training. Try being able to get over 20 arrows near bullseye in 10 minutes or less, or levitating the golden ball in less than 20 seconds all the way off the screen. It’s not possible with a “scientific” approach to intuition. All that left brain objectivity can only get you so far. I will be posting videos soon enough, but honestly; you gamers need to be a bit more open to the fact that more spectrums of mind and feeling exist beyond mere hand eye coordination. Peace.
^meant purple ball in the beginning of the game in the ampitheatre