Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Greek roots tele, 'remote', and metron, 'measure'. Systems that need external instructions and data to operate require the counterpart of telemetry: telecommand.
A brain–computer interface (BCI), sometimes called a brain–machine interface (BMI) or smartbrain, is a direct communication pathway between the brain's electrical activity and an external device, most commonly a computer or robotic limb. BCIs are often directed at researching, mapping, assisting, augmenting, or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions. They are often conceptualized as a human–machine interface that skips the intermediary component of the physical movement of body parts, although they also raise the possibility of the erasure of the discreteness of brain and machine. Implementations of BCIs range from non-invasive and partially invasive to invasive, based on how close electrodes get to brain tissue.
Tan Le is a Vietnamese-born Australian telecommunications entrepreneur and a co-founder of Emotiv. She was named the 1998 Young Australian of the Year.
A Bluetooth stack is software that is an implementation of the Bluetooth protocol stack.
NeuroSky, Inc. is a manufacturer of brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies for consumer product applications, which was founded in 2004 in Silicon Valley, California. The company adapts electroencephalography (EEG) and electromyography (EMG) technology to fit a consumer market within a number of fields such as entertainment, education, automotive, and health.
Emotiv Systems is an Australian electronics innovation company developing technologies to evolve human computer interaction incorporating non-conscious cues into the human-computer dialogue to emulate human to human interaction. Developing brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) based on electroencephalography (EEG) technology, Emotiv Systems produced the EPOC near headset, a peripheral targeting the gaming market for Windows, OS X and Linux platforms. The EPOC has 16 electrodes and was originally designed to work as a BCI input device.
The Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA) is a brain–computer interface (BCI) device developed by OCZ Technology. BCI devices attempt to move away from the classic input devices like keyboard and mouse and instead read electrical activity from the head, preferably the EEG. The name Neural Impulse Actuator implies that the signals originate from some neuronal activity; however, what is actually captured is a mixture of muscle, skin and nerve activity including sympathetic and parasympathetic components that have to be summarized as biopotentials rather than pure neural signals. As of May 27, 2011, the OCZ website says that the NIA is no longer being manufactured and has been end-of-lifed.
Underwater acoustic communication is a technique of sending and receiving messages in water. There are several ways of employing such communication but the most common is by using hydrophones. Underwater communication is difficult due to factors such as multi-path propagation, time variations of the channel, small available bandwidth and strong signal attenuation, especially over long ranges. Compared to terrestrial communication, underwater communication has low data rates because it uses acoustic waves instead of electromagnetic waves.
Serafina Brocious is an American software engineer best known for her work on PyMusique and her demonstration of Onity HT lock system vulnerabilities in 2012.
There are various consumer brain–computer interfaces available for sale. These are devices that generally use an electroencephalography (EEG) headset to pick up EEG signals, a processor that cleans up and amplifies the signals, and converts them into desired signals, and some kind of output device.
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex and allocortex. It is typically non-invasive, with the EEG electrodes placed along the scalp using the International 10–20 system, or variations of it. Electrocorticography, involving surgical placement of electrodes, is sometimes called "intracranial EEG". Clinical interpretation of EEG recordings is most often performed by visual inspection of the tracing or quantitative EEG analysis.
Wearable technology is any technology that is designed to be used while worn. Common types of wearable technology include smartwatches and smartglasses. Wearable electronic devices are often close to or on the surface of the skin, where they detect, analyze, and transmit information such as vital signs, and/or ambient data and which allow in some cases immediate biofeedback to the wearer.
The Logitech Unifying Receiver is a small dedicated USB wireless receiver, based on the nRF24L-family of RF devices, that allows up to six compatible Logitech human interface devices to be linked to the same computer using 2.4 GHz band radio communication. Receivers that are bundled with a Logitech product are paired with the device at the factory. When purchasing a replacement receiver or connecting multiple devices to one receiver, pairing requires the free-of-charge Logitech Unifying software, available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. On Linux the Solaar software can be used to adjust the configurations. Although not compatible with Bluetooth, devices pair to Unifying Receivers in a similar way. Peripherals remain paired, and can then be used on systems not supporting the software. Logitech receivers compatible with the Unifying protocol can be identified by the orange Unifying logo, which distinguishes them from Logitech Nano receivers of similar appearance, which pair in a similar manner but only with a single device, without using the Unifying protocol.
SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI) was a German provider of dedicated computer vision applications with a major focus on eye-tracking technology. SMI was founded in 1991 as a spin-off from academic and medical research at the Free University of Berlin. The company has its headquarters in Teltow near Berlin, Germany, offices in Boston, Massachusetts and San Francisco, California, in the United States, and a worldwide distributor and partner network.
Google Cardboard is a discontinued virtual reality (VR) platform developed by Google. Named for its fold-out cardboard viewer into which a smartphone is inserted, the platform was intended as a low-cost system to encourage interest and development in VR applications. Users can either build their own viewer from simple, low-cost components using specifications published by Google, or purchase a pre-manufactured one. To use the platform, users run Cardboard-compatible mobile apps on their phone, place it into the back of the viewer, and view content through the lenses.
OpenBCI is an open-source brain–computer interface platform, created by Joel Murphy and Conor Russomanno, after a successful Kickstarter campaign in late 2013.
The KDE Gear is a set of applications and supporting libraries that are developed by the KDE community, primarily used on Linux-based operating systems but mostly multiplatform, and released on a common release schedule.
A mind-controlled wheelchair is a motorized wheelchair controlled by a brain–computer interface. Such a wheelchair could be of great importance to patients with locked-in syndrome (LIS), in which a patient is aware but cannot move or communicate verbally due to complete paralysis of nearly all voluntary muscles in the body except the eyes. Such wheelchairs can also be used in case of muscular dystrophy, a disease that weakens the musculoskeletal system and hampers locomotion.
Marathon IV: Road Rogue was an eight-day experimental music performance by Minneapolis musician and composer Mark Mallman. The project consisted of a continuous, 180-plus hour mobile webcast from the back of a van as it traveled from New York City to Los Angeles. The vehicle was equipped with technology that translated brain waves and heart rhythms into electronic music, allowing the artist to continue performing while he was sleeping.
The first-generation Oculus Quest is a discontinued virtual reality headset developed by Oculus, a brand of Facebook Inc., and released on May 21, 2019. Similar to its predecessor, Oculus Go, it is a standalone device, that can run games and software wirelessly under an Android-based operating system. It supports positional tracking with six degrees of freedom, using internal sensors and an array of cameras in the front of the headset rather than external sensors. The cameras are also used as part of the safety feature "Passthrough", which shows a view from the cameras when the user exits their designated boundary area. A later software update added "Oculus Link", a feature that allows the Quest to be connected to a computer via USB, enabling use with Oculus Rift-compatible software and games.
