This is not a big surprise. A headset that will detect thought patterns from a headset that will allow a gamer to interact with items within a game. The mind of course whirls with possibilities. It seems a boom to those denizens of Second Life. It will no doubt be applied to, um, interpersonal relations on the Internet. It could help with telemedicine, interacting with digital libraries, google searches, well, you name it and to paraphrase Walt Disney, if you can imagine it, we can invent it. Just imagine what this will do for couch potatoes who don't want to have to actually push the buttons on the remote.
There's the constant threat of improving on reality. For an awful lot of people, reality is over-rated and they do whatever they can to avoid it. Novels are certainly one example of escapism, but technology keeps taking escapism to new levels. Though today's (or rather next Christmas season's) capabilities are quite limited, it doesn't take a rocket scientist nor a marketer to consider how the capabilities of such a device will be enhanced over time.
Another obvious potential use would be to continue to help us eliminate the keyboard and mouse. Bypass technology like this would be nice to help reinvigorate our ability to interact with technology. Tie this in with the newer systems being developed to recognize gesture and someday you'll be seeing either people sitting completely still like they're in some sort of Zen trance or they'll be hip-hopping around interacting with technology like they've got St. Vitas Dance.
It makes me think of the Manecheism heresy which believed that contact with matter was evil and only the spirit was good. We all know people who watch too much television. As our notion of television blurs into our developing Internet and the boundary of reality and fantasy continues to blur, how many people will leave more and more of the real world behind. It's a fair question.
Still, it seems like a very cool toy and if it is treated as such, it should be a lot of fun. It has its potential as a great tool as well, but one of the first rules of freedom is to limit it. In the current culture, limits are seen as too limiting . . .
Here's a google search on the term Neuroheadset
