Sometime in the late 80's when the Mac was still in its original form, a software developer in Texas came up with a headband and software to graph brainwaves. I thought that it would be great to use brainwaves to control the cursor rather than using a mouse. I had already seen a video of someone using brainwaves to start, stop, and reverse a toy train.
I talked to two friends who were more hardware-oriented and we corresponded with the guy in Texas. The local three of us met several times over coffee or a meal, but we never even came close to a prototype. Besides, the headband had to be greased with something so that a good contact was made.
A couple of years later, I read that a group in England received a $25,000 grant to develop a means to control the cursor with brain waves.
Today, I read a piece in the Star Tribune called "Thinking Toys" about two gadgets that are controlled by brain waves.
Somehow I don't think it is much ahead of the toy train control. From what I understand, you can make a ball go up and down with a fan. It does have a spinning obstacle course so that you can try to get the ball through or over various obtacles. This means that you can "exert" more or less force, but for cursor control you need two co-ordinates, up-and-down and left-to-right.
Uncle Milton's Star Wars Force Trainer is more straight forward. The user makes a ball go up and down in a clear tube.
Both of these use wireless EEG technology developed by Greg Hyver of NeuroSky.
See "Toy trains 'Star War' fans to use 'The Force", USA Today, 2009-01-06 for more details.
Neither toy company appears to have any mention on its web site.
But when I searched for "NeuroSky" I found more exciting details. NeuroSky's technology is more than more or less pressure. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQWBfCg91CU for more demonstrations, including two-dimensional movement.
See also NeuroSky's website for more information.
