News.com.au

FORGET using passwords to log on to your computer, needing touch screens to navigate on your smartphone or paying expensive energy bills; in the future your daily activities will create all the energy you need to power your house, biometrics will unlock your devices, and your mind will be capable of controlling them. It’s a bold prediction, but IBM expects such technologies will be in people’s hands in as soon as five years' time. Read more.

Wall Street Journal

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but thought controlled computing, literally computers that you can control simply by thinking, are becoming a reality. WSJ's Ben Rooney caught up with the CEO of Interaxon to find out how this all works. Watch the video. Read the blog post.

Posted Toronto (National Post)

In the natural light-bathed lobby of the Telus Centre for Performance and Learning, the concert hall of the Royal Conservatory of Music on Bloor Street, I can barely hear anything over the roar of networking. A gentleman fishes through every pocket of his tweed jacket until he finds a pad of hot-pink Post-It notes. On the top note he writes, “Abraham Heifets,” and hands it to me.

“Just Google that,” he says, adding that his makeshift card is, “hand-crafted and locally produced.”

How outré. How groovy. How TED.

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NOW Magazine

On a day which the crowd saw a man with a camera in his eye (filmmaker Rob Spence, aka Eyeborg) and a woman with a brain wave monitor hooked up to her head (Ariel Garten, a neuroscience expert and "brain guru"), the very simple ideas to use different words and admit mistakes seemed refreshingly accessible. Read more...

Marketwatch

TORONTO, ONTARIO, Sep 21, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Attention: Toronto editors, City reporters, Life editors, Entertainment editors

For the third year, TEDxToronto continues to spread ideas worth sharing with its annual conference at the TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning. The sold-out conference will showcase 14 inspiring TEDxTalks with 700 delegates on the theme of Redefinition. This year's speakers include David Miller, Adam Garone, Ariel Garten, and Rob Spence.

Free live video streaming of the conference will be available at http://www.tedxtoronto.com , and at viewing parties at various locations around Toronto. The full conference schedule is available at http://www.tedxtoronto.com/conference.

Speakers:

Ariel Garten, CEO and Co-Founder, InteraXon
David Miller, Urban Green Jobs Advocate & 63rd Mayor of Toronto
Adam Garone, Founder and CEO, Movember
Carlyle Jenson, Founder, Good For Her
Bilaal Rajan, Children's Right Activist, Making Change Now
Rob Spence, Director, Rob Spence TV
George Roter, CEO, Co-Founder, Engineers Without Borders Canada
Dr. Brian Goldman, Author, The Night Shift
Joshna Maharaj, Chef, Writer, Activist
Ted Sargent, Professor, Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology
Brandon Hay, Founder, Black Daddies Club (BDC)
Nicholas Schiefer, Grade 12 Student
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, Professor of Psychology, C.Psych., University of Toronto, ExamCorp

Read more...

Story by Co.Design

Alex McLeod makes candy-colored digital landscapes fit for a Princess Peach. Now he’s experimenting with thought-controlled computing to make clouds bounce on the screen by blinking your eye. Over the past year, we’ve seen paintings that look like photographs and photographs that look like paintings. Now, Canadian artist Alex McLeod is making 3-D dioramas that look like landscape photography--if the landscapes were a candy fantasy land where architecture doesn’t bend to natural laws of physics, earth-like substances sprout in unconventional ways, and inflatable sculptures that look like croissants hover in the sky. Read more...

Prismatic Planes HD from Alex McLeod on Vimeo.

Metro is excited to be one of the sponsors for this year's TEDxToronto. Leading up to this year's event Metro will bring video introductions to some of the remarkable speakers presenting at TEDxToronto 2011. This week, meet Ariel Garten, CEO and Co-Founder of InteraXon.

Read more...

Story by: Tomorrow Awards

Trevor Coleman is the CCO of InteraXon, a company specializing in the exploration of commercial uses for mind-computer interfaces.

TOMORROW: Mind-Machine interface seems to be the next logical step after gestural and voice interface, but both of those technologies are still in their relative infancy. How would you characterize the current state of thought-interface technology?

TREVOR: The technology is today where voice recognition was in the 1990s. It’s finally reached a level where it’s becoming accessible for consumer applications. And while it’s not perfect, it’s good enough to enable the first generation of new experiences and interactions that will drive widespread awareness and acceptance of the technology.

TOMORROW: How many years do you think it will take for the technology to become both effective and mainstream, and what does the world look like when that occurs?

TREVOR: Lets look at voice recognition as a model for a second: in the 1970s, it was only theoretically possible, but over the course of the 80s it got better to the point where the first commercial applications became available in the 1990s. Now, it’s included by default in every cellphone. So I’d say that in 15 to 20 years, brainwave-based technologies will be as common as voice dialling is today.

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Story by


imagine being able to change the music you’re listening to using nothing but your mind. imagine moving images on a screen in front of you just by concentrating on them. imagine levitating, 20 feet in the air, while shooting glitter from your fingertips onto dancing supermodels below…

it sounds like something straight up out of a sci-fi novel, but it’s not. we actually did all of those things yesterday, right here in toronto. well… everything but the last thing. thinking about the future causes my imagination to run a bit wild sometimes…


Read more...

Story by: Bloomberg Business

Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Emily Chang reports on InteraXon's technology that allows you to control electronic devices with your mind.

Featured on Tech Crunch

Throw out your touchscreens, kibosh your Kinects: thought-controlled computing is the new new thing. Brain-computer interface technology has been simmering for years, and seems finally ready to bubble out of research labs and into the real world.

Earlier this year, friends of mine at the Toronto art space Site3 built a thought-controlled flamethrower, for fun. (Don’t you hate how it’s always the friends you least want to have the power to project torrents of flame with a flick of their mind who always get it?) Toronto has long been a hub for brain computing, in part because legendary cyborg Steve Mann is a University of Toronto engineering professor. Mann also cofounded the thought-controlled computing consultancy InteraXon, which built the neural installation at this year’s Olympics.

Both InteraXon and my pyromaniacal friends use brainwave-reading headsets made by Neurosky (whose promise was noted by TechCrunch five years ago) and Emotiv. Continue reading here….

Authored by Michele Perras for www.MEIC.ca

Brain-controlled computing games were among 2009’s hottest holiday toys, and the pioneering minds behind Canadian startup company InteraXon plan to continue to push the frontiers of brainwave technology into the mobile computing space into 2011.

InteraXon will lead a collection of partners in the development and design of a new hardware headset, paired with the creation of a mobile interface built initially for the Apple Mobile computing platform. This will showcase several consumer applications built directly for the iPad/iPhone/iTouch system, allowing a user to interact with applications directly on the device, controlled through measurements of their brainwaves. NeuroSky, the world’s leading consumer EEG biosensor technology company joins as the guiding partner and end user, having recognized the need for a solution in the mobile computing space for this technology. (Continue reading here…).

By Matthew Handrahan

Interaxon is a Toronto-based company that is developing thought-controlled computing technology. And it’s leading the way in this new space of tech that enables users to control applications though their brain waves. Sounds pretty trippy right?

Mind controlled games. The phrase has far-reaching and fantastic implications. But whatever picture these words might paint in your imagination, the reality is very different: at once simpler and more mundane.

GamesIndustry.biz visited the headquarters of Interaxon, one of the few software developers working in the nascent field of BCI, or brain computer interface. Fifteen years ago, this sort of technology could only be found in research laboratories. It required more than 100 electrodes and several pounds of equipment to get results. Today, the same result can be achieved with a single electrode mounted on a lightweight frame, worn on the subject's head.

More importantly, this technology is now available at a price that will appeal to consumers, a development that Interaxon CEO Ariel Garten describes as a "revolution". Prior to 2009, Garten and Interaxon's only public work had been for art installations and tech demos, but affordable, consumer-grade headsets have fundamentally changed the focus of the company.

Continue reading here....

Canadian Thought Control Pioneers Put Mind Over… by NTDTV

Video courtesy of Dailymotion.com

You can watch the video here or on Dailymotion.com.

Video courtesy of Experts Angle

InteraXon’s COO, Trevor Coleman and Premier Dalton McGuinty discuss the possibilities InteraXon can unleash.

Presented by: Casale Media

In the last few years, digital media has been rocked by waves of game-changing innovation that have reshaped the ways audiences and users interact with content and technology.

(Photo courtesy of Banff World Media Festival)

Social media remapped our relationship with the Internet. Physical computing in tablets and gesture-reading technologies like Microsoft’s Kinect has opened up what it means to use a computer. The Festival’s first nextMEDIA keynote from Ariel Garten, CEO of InterAxon, gave delegates a glimpse into what the next wave of change might be: Thought Controlled Computing.

Ariel walked the audience through the many different kinds of projects in which she and her team have put thought controlled computing technologies to work. The industry changed in 2009 when new brain-wave monitoring headsets were developed that could finally be consumer facing, and not merely the province of elite research institutions.

Read more at the Banff World Media Festival website

Kempton Lam interviews Ariel Garten at the 2011 BANFF World Media Festival

You can watch the video here or on Youtube.

You can read the highlight’s from the interview here.

Toronto Life Magazine


(Image: Steve Mann)

Much more conveniently located than a galaxy far, far away, a small tech company called InteraXon on Queen West is developing products that will allow you to control your iPad with your mind. InteraXon uses software originally created by the legendary U of T engineer Steve Mann, who was dubbed “the world’s first cyborg” because of his ingenious wearable computer devices. The company’s thought-controlled computing technology translates brainwaves into digital signals recognizable by a computer—be it in a video game, automobile or robot butler. In other words, the brain’s electrical activity, which you can supposedly learn to manipulate just like any muscle, is converted by an interface into binary code. InteraXon’s first public splash was a demo during the 2010 Winter Olympics that allowed headset-equipped visitors in Vancouver to mentally control light shows at the CN Tower, Parliament Hill and Niagara Falls. The company promises more radical breakthroughs in the next couple of years, including an unobtrusive, wearable home-monitoring system that will predict epilepsy seizures and notify doctors and family.

See full article here.

Child psychiatrist hopes to test Interaxon's system for treatment of ADD

CBC News

Hands-free video games that rely on brain waves to control the action are being developed by a Toronto company to help people learn to focus or relax their minds.

Interaxon, which specializes in "thought-controlled computing," has created games that train the brain to switch between producing alpha waves, linked to relaxation, and beta waves, linked to focusing.

In a golf video game, the player relaxes to bring the club back, and then focuses to swing. The ball's trajectory depends on how well you relax, focus, and switch between the two.

"You can see how this would be useful for a quick break at work [or] when you get home, to help you unwind, to help you understand how to relax," said Ariel Garten, CEO of Interaxon. Read more...

Presented by: Andrew of Geek News Central

Andy McCaskey interviews Ariel Garten, CEO of InteraXon – Thought Controlled Computing. It’s no longer sci-fi, you can now interact with technology using the power of your mind (rather than your thoughts being controlled by computers.)

The system consists of a lightweight headset with two electrodes that detects brainwaves such as alpha and beta waves. Different patterns are associated with different mental states, e.g. concentrating with beta waves and relaxed with alpha, so as your mind changes states an action can be taken. Trivially, you can link your concentration to a light, so while you are concentrating on reading, the light is on and bright, but as you relax and drift off to sleep, the light dims before finally turning off.

Read more at Geek News Central...

This technological gadget will now show you what you feel like seeing

With 3D movies gaining in popularity and a number of 3D televisions coming onto the market in the near future, there are different 3D glasses that are used in conjunction with each type.

3D glasses gauges the depth perception by the human eye but 3D glasses that can detect your mood and will adjust what you're watching according to how you're feeling is something that one couldn’t have imagined.

A Canadian Company however has turned that imagination into a reality. Canadian digital innovations company InteraXon unveiled its latest products incorporating Thought Controlled Computing-a technology that lets users control a digital interface using simply the power of their concentration.

Read more...

From MoCo Loco Design

by Harry / January 14, 2011

Via digital artist @ALEX_McLEOD_, the world's first thought-controlled 3D TV experience. The system, introduced at CES last week, responds to changes in the user's brainstate.

"Built with InteraXon's specially modified 3D glasses, this [CES] demonstration offers you the opportunity to immerse yourself in a cognitively controlled experience, further opening the door to next generation games, mental trainers, & connected interactions."

Read more...

Ariel Garten on Harddisken Radio

Ved du hvor meget du vejer? Hvad din fedtprocent er? Har du styr på hvor mange skridt, du tager i løbet af en dag, og hvor mange kalorier du forbrænder?

Og ved du, hvor tit du egentlig går ud og drikker en øl? Eller om dine gener skjuler en ubehagelig overraskelse med truende sygdomme? Og har du styr på, hvad dine hjernebølger fortæller om dit mentale velbefindende?

Hvis ikke, så er det bare med at komme igang! I hvert fald hvis man skal tro de mange, der er begyndt på det, man kalder self-tracking eller personlig dataindsamling.

Listen to the radio program here.

DailyIndia.com

Washington, Jan 10: A Canadian company has created 3D glasses that can detect your mood and will adjust what you're watching according to how you're feeling.

Canadian digital innovations company InteraXon unveiled its latest products incorporating Thought Controlled Computing-a technology that lets users control a digital interface using simply the power of their concentration.

Their creations include thought-controlled 3D glasses that tests a person's ability to focus their mind for an extended period of time, reports Fox News.

Read more...

The Next Web

Interaxon is a Toronto-based company that is developing thought-controlled computing technology. And it’s leading the way in this new space of tech that enables users to control applications though their brain waves. Sounds pretty trippy right?

Interaxon’s technology uses a sensor to detect your thoughts and is capable of bringing new meaning to the term “user-friendly”. The Interaxon team, that includes neuroscientists, engineers, designers, and project managers will likely make some serious waves this year with applications like Zen Bound. Last week at CES, Interaxon was showing off a demo of its technology working with a new version of the iPad game Zen Bound. Players were challenged to wrap a rope around objects with their minds using the iPad without actually touching the device. Interaxon is the start of exciting new advancements in thought-control.
Read more...

CBC News

InteraXon: InteraXon is another Toronto-based startup. The four-year-old company brought a number of employees to CES to walk the show floor with demos of its thought-controlled iPad game.

The game, called Zenbound, is available through Apple’s app store, but only in a non-thought-controlled version at the moment. The game challenges players to wrap a rope around wooden models by tilting and moving the iPad around.

In InteraXon’s demo-only version, designed with game maker Secret Exit, the physical tilting and movement of the iPad is replaced with mere thought. The user wears a headset that measures alpha and beta brainwaves, harnessing them to control the game. Getting good at it is not unlike playing golf — the secret is to relax and focus.

Read more...

Motherboard

One of the cooler techs showed off at the past weekend’s Consumer Electronics Show was a demonstration of thought-processing by InteraXon. Their crazy mind control technology works with a simple headset and iPad. The headphones are equipped with a pair of sensors that sit against the user’s left ear and forehead, forming a circuit that gauges electrical signals occurring in the brain. The signals are relayed to the iPad through an attached Bluetooth dongle. Alpha brainwaves increase as the player relaxes and beta waves jump while focusing. Getting good at Zenbound is thus not unlike playing golf, InteraXon chief executive Ariel Garten says. Read more...

Doc Brown, the crazy inventor from Back to the Future, may not have perfected his mind-reading contraption, but real scientists have.

Gamers set aside their joysticks recently to test out a new video game. All they needed instead? The power of thought.

InteraXon, a Canadian digital innovations company, was the hit of CES when it unveiled the latest products incorporating Thought Controlled Computing -- a technology that lets users control a digital interface using simply the power of their concentration. Their creations include thought-controlled 3D glasses as well as an iPad game that tests a person’s ability to focus their mind for an extended period of time.

Read more...

Manila Bulletin Publishing Company

MANILA, Philippines – Brainwave-based technology is finally reaching the marketplace, according to InteraXon, a Toronto-based provider of custom product and experience solutions to clients who want to engage in Thought-Controlled Computing (TCC).

InteraXon is showcasing Thought-Controlled Ipad Game and brainwave-enabled 3D TV experience at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the world’s premier showcase for must-have technologies, next week (January 6-9, 2011).

During the CES, the Canadian firm will be debuting a thought-controlled version of the award winning ZenBound 2 iPad game, as well as a brainwave-powered 3D environment created in collaboration with cutting edge Canadian artist Alex McLeod.

Read more...

If you've been following CES you might think the entire technology industry is making tablets, but no – some firms are doing much nuttier things than sawing the keyboards off laptops. We have robot deer, robot staff, modern-day alchemy, thought-controlled games and an iPhone app that tells you if you're a lady.

iThink therefore iPad

This year's Consumer Electronics Show has barely begun and we've already found the tech that's hard to top: brain-controlled iPads. As New Scientist reports, Canadian firm Interaxon will be showing off a thought-controlled version of the Zen Bound iPad game at CES this year.

Modified headphones can tell when alpha brainwaves increase – due to relaxing – or when beta waves get a boost from intense concentration, and the on-screen action changes accordingly. A thought-controlled FIFA is some way off, although a thought-controlled Wayne Rooney probably isn't too much of a challenge.

Read more...

The Escapist

What do you do when touchscreens just aren't future-y enough anymore? Start controlling your iPad with your brain, that's what.

That's the idea that Toronto-based company InteraXon had, anyway. After making waves at the 2010 Winter Olympics for allowing people to control the lights on the CN Tower all the way from Vancouver via a thought-reading headset, the company turned around and started applying its thought-control tech to gaming.

One of the prototypes it plans to show off at the Consumer Electronics Show this year is a modified version of the iPad game Zenbound in which the players move and tilt the iPad to wrap rope around stuff. Working with developers Secret Exit, the game now works based on the strength of Alpha and Beta brain waves detected by a headset EEG. Because Alpha waves are produced by relaxation, and Beta ones by focus, the game requires combining relaxation and focus to enter a zen-like state of meditation.

Read more...

Touchscreens? So two years ago. Gesture recognition? How 2010. Everyone knows the future lies in thought-controlled interfaces.

At least that's what InteraXon, a tiny Toronto startup, is hoping to convince attendees of at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. The company, which made waves at the 2010 winter Olympics by allowing users in Vancouver to control the lights on the CN Tower in Toronto with mere thought, will be showing off two new applications for its mind-control technology at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

One of its prototypes is a modified version of Zenbound, an iPad game that requires players to wrap a rope around wooden models by tilting and moving the device. InteraXon has partnered with designer Secret Exit to produce a demo-only version where movements are instead controlled by wearing a pair of headphones.

Read more...

InteraXon's downtown headquarters on John Street. Photo by D.A. Cooper/Torontoist.

Torontoist

Telekinesis—the ability to move matter through thought alone—has long served as fodder for comic books, late-night cable specials, and drug-fuelled fantasies. But aside from the occasional shiftless Star Wars nerd faced with a chicken wing just out of arm's reach, it’s not something most of us take seriously.

Why then did executives from Boeing and Bombardier, attending a demo presented by Toronto-based tech start-up InteraXon, recently test out an in-flight entertainment system for passengers to control with their minds?

Believe it or not, brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that allow minds to link directly to machines have been kicking around university and government laboratories for some time now. In the '70s researchers from the National Institute of Health in Maryland showed that monkeys could be trained to control small mechanical-feedback devices with their brains. These days scientists have primates feeding themselves through robotic prostheses.

Read more...

Mide los impulsos eléctricos del cerebro para convertirlos en información.

Article found at www.vandal.net

InteraXon es una compañía canadiense que ha desarrollado el sistema “Thought computing controlled” (computación controlada por pensamientos) que permite jugar a un videojuego controlándolo con la mente.

El sistema mide los impulsos eléctricos del cerebro para convertirlos en ondas que varían según la concentración del usuario y que un software convierte en información capaz de ser leída por un ordenador. Para hacerlo posible es necesario colocarse un dispositivo en la cabeza con sensores que analicen nuestras ondas cerebrales.

Read more…

Mide los impulsos eléctricos del cerebro para convertirlos en información.

InteraXon es una compañía canadiense que ha desarrollado el sistema “Thought computing controlled” (computación controlada por pensamientos) que permite jugar a un videojuego controlándolo con la mente.

El sistema mide los impulsos eléctricos del cerebro para convertirlos en ondas que varían según la concentración del usuario y que un software convierte en información capaz de ser leída por un ordenador. Para hacerlo posible esRead more here…

A Truly Global Gathering of Web Entrepreneurs

But LeWeb is not just about business. It was also about some pretty amazing presentations.

The standout was a thought-controlled computing masterclass from a Canadian company InteraXon. Live on stage, delegates were shown, in a manner of speaking, what was going on inside the brain of the company's CEO Ariel Garten. As she tried to speak French, the display behind her showed her brain waves shifting, showing the stress she was under. Then when she switched back to English, her brainwaves changed.

And all this came from a $200 sensor attached to her forehead. It isn't Star Trek yet, but it was not that far off.

Read more...

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It’s the Thought That Counts

One of the most (no pun intended) thought-provoking presentations at the recent LeWeb conference in Paris was that by Ariel Garten, CEO of Toronto-based Interaxon.

Her company is a world-leader in thought-controlled computing. This is the stuff of the future.

With a single, and relatively discreet, sensor attached to her forehead, delegates at the Paris-based event could tell if the 31-year-old Canadian was either relaxed, or concentrating. The sensor detects her brain’s alpha and beta waves and Interaxon software interprets the signals.

Read more...

Spain

Con el paso del tiempo no queda ninguna duda que controlaremos a nuestros sirvientes (los robots), a nuestros ordenadores y prácticamente todo lo necesario con simplemente pensar lo que queremos que hagan.

read more...

Japan

飛行中のエンターテインメントとして提供しようとしている、脳波をコントローラー代わりに使って楽しむゲーム。

read more...

United Kingdom

The demo of a prototype thought controlled in-flight entertainment system shows that this technology is reaching the point where it can be of practical usefulness.

read more...

A Way to Play Brain-Controlled Games on Airplanes

Slowly but surely technology is seeping into airplanes, which up until a couple of years ago felt like a final reprieve from the digital world. You can use your cell phone at certain times before take off and after landing, you can watch DVDs on your laptop and you can surf the Internet using in-flight Wi-Fi.

read more...

Brain-controlled games boarding planes soon?

Ever found yourself struggling to stabilize that mobile device for optimum in-flight entertainment? Toronto-based Interaxon says it may have an alternative in the form of thought-controlled in-flight games that let you keep your hands (and gadget stands) tucked away.

Yes, soon enough, you may be playing the likes of Mario Kart on your way from coast to coast--with brain power alone.

read more...

High tech to enhance experience

High-tech 3-D screens, thought-controlled computing, more comfortable seating and Internet connectivity are all part of the future of airline travel, according to delegates at Ontario's first industrial aerospace show held recently in Windsor.

The conference brought together more than 50 aerospace companies and suppliers exploring innovation, buyer-seller opportunities and the creation of the next century of flight.

read more...

Canadian company develops thought-control technology which uses brain waves

It may sound like science fiction, but using your brain waves to control the environment around you, like the lights in your home or even your toaster, is already a reality.

One Toronto-based company has developed a system called thought-control computing and it's exploring a range of commercial opportunities that include screens on airplanes and video games.

read more...

Written by: Shane McGlaun for Slashgear.com

When I was a kid I figured that by the time, I had kids we wouldn’t need things like remote controls and light switches. We would just think we wanted them on and they would come on. There are a few thought-controlled devices on the market, but we still have to use remotes to change channels on the TV.

Read more…

Vancouver thought-power lights up Ontario

People are using the power of their thoughts to light up landmark locations thousands of kilometres away, thanks to a technology being demonstrated at Ontario's Olympic pavilion in Vancouver.

In what developers say is the world's largest thought-controlled computing installation, participants are changing the colours of the nighttime lighting displays shining on Niagara Falls, the parliament buildings in Ottawa and the CN Tower in Toronto.

'We can tune in brain stations'—InteraXon CEO Trevor Coleman

Pavilion visitors can volunteer to sit in comfortable chairs, wear a headset, then think about a colour.

Read more...

London Telegraph (Blog)

Tripping the light: fantastic

I’m being told to empty my mind as I sit with a headset on with four electrodes – three on my ear and one on my forehead – in front of a giant screen. On a small monitor attached to my seat, I see lines that represent my laidback alpha brainwaves drop steadily down to the bottom of the screen (ah, so all that yogic downward-dogging does actually calm you).

Now I have to ramp my brain up again: I’m directed to start concentrating hard as I stare at a live screen of the CN Tower in Toronto (I could have chosen Niagara Falls or Ottawa’s parliament buildings). As my beta brainwaves go to work I make the 1,300 LED lights around the structure spin – and, not to show off, but I mean Whirling-Dervish spin. Read more...

The Huffington Post

Thought-Controlled Lights At Olympics: 'Bright Lights' Installation Lights Up Niagara Falls

Thought-controlled lights illuminating Niagara Falls during the winter Olympics? Maybe this will cheer up the Vancouver locals apparently dreading the upcoming games.

Toronto-based company InteraXon (which specializes in thought controlled computing) is planning an installation where visitors will be able to control live light shows at Niagara Falls with their thoughts, from Vancouver. The project, Bright Ideas, is described as the the wold's largest thought-controlled experience. Read more...

Torontoist

CN Tower Now Subject to Olympic-Goers' Mind Control

If you're in the mood to feel an overwhelming sense of power, hop on a plane and go to the Ontario Pavilion at the Olympics in Vancouver. There, you can control the lights on the CN Tower with your mind. Yes, that's right: with your mind. Read more...

CNN

Story Highlights

• Canadian company creates "largest thought-controlled computing installation"
• Visitors to the Olympics use brainwaves to control the lights at 3 major Canada landmarks
• People put on headsets and increase lighting by thinking about it, company explains
• Landmarks are: Toronto's CN Tower, Ottawa's Parliament Buildings and Niagara Falls

Read more...

Popular Science

Heading to the Olympics? Don't Leave Without Controlling the CN Tower's Lights With Your Mind

It wouldn't be the Olympics without distractions; the 2006 Winter Games in Turin had their Austrian doping scandals, and the most recent Summer Games in Beijing were punctuated by an epic opening ceremony followed by rampant media censorship. Not to be outdone, Canada's Bright Ideas installation will allow visitors to the upcoming Vancouver Games the chance to control lighting installations at major landmarks in faraway Ontario using only their thoughts. Read more...

Metro - Sweden

Styr ljuset i Kanada med din tankekraft

Genom att bara använda sina tankar kan besökare på vinter-OS genomföra stordåd. Belysningen på CN Tower i Toronto, parlamentet i Ottawa och Niagara-fallen kan styras med tankekraft från Ontario Pavilion. Read more...

Vancouver Sun

Tech startup takes mind-controlled computing out of science fiction and into real life

If you're planning to be at the upcoming Vancouver Olympics, take time to stop at the Ontario pavilion and give a thought to tech startup InteraXon.

That thought could be about lighting up Niagara Falls. Or the CN Tower. Or Ottawa's Parliament buildings.

Mind-controlled computing has come off the pages of sci-finovels into real life and Toronto-based InteraXon is at the Olympics with the hope that demonstrating the technology to a world audience will help move it into the mainstream. Read more...

Korea IT Times

The Winter Olympics has the Largest Thought-Controlled Computing Installation Experiment

How many ways can you turn on the lights? The most common ways are turning a switch, clapping, or using a remote control. What about just by thinking about it?

During the Winter Olympics in Canada this month, a Canadian company called "InteraXon" is doing an experiment, in which the Olympic "visitors use their brainwaves to control the lights at three major landmarks in Canada, such as Niagara Falls." "When people put on the headsets and find themselves increasing the brightness of the lights by just thinking about it, you can almost see their brains explode," says Trevor Coleman, the chief operating officer for InteraXon. Read more...

Ottawa Citizen (Blog)

Ottawa Goes to the Olympics

Ontario House offers free admission to the general public in order to experience Ontario. With a daytime capacity of 450 people, visitors to Ontario House will be able to change the nightly illumination of three of the province's major tourism icons-the CN Tower, Niagara Falls and Ottawa's own Parliament Buildings-utilizing innovative new thought-controlled computing technology designed by Toronto-based firm InteraXon. After donning special headsets, guests will be taught to use their brainwaves to control the three light shows taking place in Ontario, over 3,000 km (1,864 miles) away. Read more...

CiNEHEARTECH - Germany

Kontrolle mit gedanken

Aber was ist für uns Menschen die intuitivste Steuerungsmöglichkeit? Steuerung nicht unserer Gedanken, sondern durch die Gedanken. Oder um genauer zu sein über elektrische Potentiale die sich über der Kopfoberfläche ableiten lassen. InteraXon, eine kanadische Tüftlerschmiede, möchte dieses Jahr das o.g. Konzept pünktlich zu den Olympischen Winterspielen in Vancouver im großen Stile vorstellen. So haben Besucher des Ontario Pavilion die Möglichkeit mit einer Vorrichtung ähnlich einem EEG (Elektroenzephalografie) und ihren Gedanken, Live-Lichtershows an verschiedenen Stellen Kanadas zu steuern. Read more...

Winter Olympics to Demo Thought-Controlled Lighting

“Along with the figure skating, ice hockey and snowboarding, another event will compete for attention at the Winter Olympics in Canada this month.

A Canadian company has created what it calls the “largest thought-controlled computing installation.” It’s an experiment that lets visitors to the Olympics use their brainwaves to control the lights at three major landmarks in Canada, including Niagara Falls…"

Read the rest at wired.com

Found at www.Newz.dk

Videnskaben har de seneste år arbejdet hårdt på at lave ny teknologi, der effektivt kan aflæse ens tanker og omsætte dem til handlinger. Endnu er teknologien stadig forholdsvis primitiv, og mulighederne er begrænsede.

Det har dog ikke afholdt canadiske Interaxon fra at lege lidt med teknologien og gøre den afprøvelig ved det komende Vinter OL, der går i gang i Vancouver i næste uge. I Ontario House i Vancouver kan besøgende prøve en hjernebølgeaflæser, der måler deres alpha- og betabølger, som henholdsvis er relateret til afslappelse og koncentration.

Read more at Newz.DK…

It’s the thought that counts

Published on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 6:27PM EST
by David McDougall

Last summer, employees of the small Toronto tech company InteraXon were sitting in their Dundas Street West office, conjuring ways to exploit their mind-controlling technology. Maybe they could use their brainwave sensors to build some kind of telekinetic musical instrument made with singing glass bowls? Or a thought-driven heat lamp?

But the Ontario government came up with the brightest master plan. Acting on a non-extrasensory tip from the Ministry of Research and Innovation, the Ministry of Tourism contacted them, asking if they had the power to illuminate the CN Tower.

“We thought about it for a minute and went, ‘Well, I guess so, yeah. Let’s do it,’ ” recalls Trevor Coleman, one of InteraXon’s founders.

A few days later the ministry came back again and asked if they could do something with Niagara Falls and Parliament Hill, too. In what will be their biggest venture to date, InteraXon will use its special technology to send brainwaves from the pavilion at the Vancouver Olympics to those three landmarks back east.


Read more…

Thought-Controlled Computing Will Light Up Vancouver Olympics

Figure skating? Please. The main attraction for many visitors to the Winter Olympics will be an installation letting them control the lights at Niagara Falls with their minds. That’s right: we’re all telekinetics now.

Of course, anything seemingly this amazing requires some hedging. The Bright Ideas installation by Toronto-based company InteraXon doesn’t let you decide what color the lights should be or how brightly they should shine, and it can’t tell if you’re specific thought is, say, “Lights, I command thee!” Instead:

The headset used in this installation measures the brain’s electrical output and reacts to alpha waves, associated with relaxation, and beta waves, associated with concentration. As the users relax or focus their thoughts, the computer will send a message over the internet to the site they are viewing. InteraXon’s custom software connects users thoughts to the lighting controls to change the display on the landmark site.

So basically, as long as you’re thinking hard about something, you’ll be able to control a light show thousands of miles away. In addition to Niagara Falls, displays will also be featured at Toronto’s CN Tower and Ottawa’s Parliament Buildings.

Someone, please, if you make it out to Vancouver this month, let me know what this is like. And don’t worry! I’m sure the headset’s not simultaneously recording your brain waves to somehow remotely manipulate your every thought down the road. At least, I’m pretty sure.

Original article on: www.gizmodo.com

InteraXon on the Business News Network

You can watch the video here or on BNN's site.

Function Meets Brainwaves:

InteraXon featured in Society of Women Engineers Magazine

Earlier this year Society of Women Engineers Magazine profiled InteraXon partner Ariel Garten in their cover story on women working in the field of wearable computing.

You can see us on the cover or read the full article.

CTV webMANIA

CTV featured InteraXon and their Star Trek themed brainwave game in their national news broadcast's webMANIA segment earlier this year.

You can watch the video here or on CTV's site.

Thought-Controlled Computing

Power of the mind drives technology

InteraXon team harnesses brainwaves to operate video games, gadgets and even levitating chairs

The Toronto Star
Feb 26, 2009
By: Joseph Hall

While they ready the chair you can levitate with your mind, there's time for a little concert ...

Water squirts and pools on the floor as Steve Mann's fingers fly across his "hydraulophone," coaxing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" out of the tadpole-shaped instrument.

"It's sophisticated frolic," says Mann, creator of the hydraulophone, the water organ.

Mann is part of a team behind a little piece of techno Neverland at work on Dundas St. W. In the cluttered offices of InteraXon Thought Controlled Computing, a host of Tinkerbell-worthy gadgets are taking flight.

"It's a pretty creative atmosphere," says lead researcher Ariel Garten, about the fledgling firm. Perhaps the most thought-provoking of the projects being pursued at the funked-out facility are the games and gadgets that can be manipulated with the mind.

Your mind can even levitate a chair and influence the accompanying sound and music, Garten explains.

To run the mind-controlled devices, users have electroencephalograph sensors. These sensors pick up the tiny electronic pulses — microvolt in intensity — that buzz like subatomic bees across your head. The pulses are the signature signals of brain activity.

All of our thoughts, movements, and states of mind are the products of neurochemical cascades that run along neurological pathways in the form of electronic impulses.

"The summation of all this electrical communication can actually be read outside of your brain," says Garten, an accomplished artist and fashion designer, who also trained in neuroscience. "And outside your head the amassment of all this electrical activity is summed up ... and you can read the general trend of your brain."

The specific "trend" of impulses the InteraXon team capture are Alpha waves, which are generated when the mind is "blissfully, calmly" relaxed, Garten explains.

"So you have to relax," she says as you sink back into the cushioned chair, which dangles on a chain from a ceiling missing a few tiles.

Breathe deeply and slowly, think of ocean waves. And on a computer screen before you, a line measuring your Alpha wave output begins to spike as you will your mind to relax.

When you're calmed down enough to push the spike past a tripping line, an electronic winch begins to lift the chair.

"So, it's a really nice metaphor for a kind of meditative state," Garten says. "Everybody has always dreamed that as you meditate you could ... levitate yourself."

As metaphors go, it may be nice imagery. As a practical matter, it results from InteraXon's painstaking software programming that allows it to capture the Alpha waves, isolate them from all other electronic noise — from other computers, cellphones — and amplify them into a usable electronic signal.

"All of that is nullified and we're just getting your pure brainwave in a way that's meaningful," says Garten. And with that isolated brainwave, Garten says, anything that can be plugged in can conceivably be manipulated by Alpha activity.

InteraXon's main goal, Garten says, is as lofty as the chair.

"We're here to change the face of thought-controlled computing," she says. "(It's) becoming much more common and it's really the breaking point for this technology."

Garten describes the company as a "start up" that launched a year ago. It has five partners, who initially financed the company themselves, but buzz about their work has attracted willing investors.

InteraXon is actively developing commercial games and other gadgets for a general market.

The technology also has obvious implications for people with physical impairments, from those who suffer from such degenerative diseases such as ALS and Parkinson's, to those with spinal-cord injuries. But InteraXon's focus is to bring the technology to the general public.

And as interest heightens and technology is created — in the form of computer games and other gadgets — the sophistication will grow and prices fall, Garten predicts.

It's this technology-price cycle that will bring thought-controlled computing to the field of assisted medical devices, says Tom Chau, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Pediatric Rehabilitation Engineering at Toronto's Bloorview MacMillan Children's Centre.

Chau's Bloorview team creates devices to help severely disabled kids interact with the world.

"Of course, the more this kind of technology gets developed, the more useful it will be for our needs," says Chau.

Thought-controlled computing no longer Star Trek fiction

IT Business
May 19, 2009
By: Brian Jackson

When Trevor Coleman's friend threw a Star Trek convention, he could have slapped on some pointy-ears for a costume and attended like most fans. Instead he contributed a brainwave-controlled video game straight out of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Toronto-based InteraXon had developed a system that measures brainwave activity using electrodes held in place with a rubber headband, then converts those readings into an output that can manipulate a computer. It's a little bit different from using a mouse and keyboard.

The Star Trek convention was perfect for the technology's first public debut, Coleman says. It just took a graphical interface made to approximate one seen in Star Trek episode The Game.

"By entering and leaving particular brain states, you can control a seat vibrator that gives them tactile feedback," he says. "Also, the video image and the game are controlled with your mind alone."

InteraXon demonstrated their technology at the Premier's Innovation Awards on Tuesday. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty slipped the rubber band and electrodes onto his head and shot a few discs into a moving cylinder -- the object of the game.