But this paragraph in the article is interesting and noteworthy:
CTRL-Labs’ work is built on a technology known as differential electromyography, or EMG. The band’s inside is lined with electrodes, and while they’re touching my skin, they measure electrical pulses along the neurons in my arm. These superlong cells are transmitting orders from my brain to my muscles, so they’re signaling my intentions before I’ve moved or even when I don’t move at all.
The point is that it's sensing neural signals, not physical gestures.
So you're right that it's not a brain-computer interface in the sense that EEG is, but it is still arguably a brain-computer interface, given that what it's sensing is neural activity generated by brain.
This question is discussed in the article:
If CTRL-kit doesn’t directly connect to your brain, is it still a brain-computer interface? Reardon argues that the armband is giving people better versions of the same functions they’d get with a headset or implant, using the same kind of neural signals you’d find in the brain. CTRL-Labs obviously reaps some publicity benefits by using a hot technological buzzword, but by claiming the term, it’s also implicitly questioning whether “true” mass-market brain interfaces even make sense.
It just seems that it's a matter of nuance and interpretation rather than being clear-cut.
I am very interested in this technology, and I actually went in on the Myo armband Kickstarter, hoping for something like this. As I've stated in the previous discussion, I generally like the Myo, but its range of gestures is narrow and it unfortunately increases my movement cost quite a lot compared to using some hotkeys.
For input devices, my number one concern is a cost function based on movement. And a huge penalty is applied to any device that makes me move my wrists off of my keyboard to use it. So an external mouse on a mousepad? Fuckin' hate it. The trackpoint on a Thinkpad, though, for example, is at the top of my list of "novel" input devices that I consider as essential to my computing happiness as having a keyboard (or any kind of mouse for GUI input). The Myo armband increases my movement cost quite substantially, so even though I like it and it's not a scam and it generally does what it says on the tin, it's not something that I'll use very often, let alone supplant the ole keyboard and mouse/trackpoint.
I think this technology -- miniaturized and maximally efficient for input (meaning it has nearly perfect ratio of desired-inputs to actual-inputs with very few errors) -- could potentially become as useful for me as the trackpoint. For example, drawing this concept out on a line, I would consider it a masterpiece of an input device if it were precise, accurate and sensitive enough to allow me some range of finger motions that allowed me to "type" text into my phone with one free hand. I'd pay one thousand United States dollars for that device.
> I'd pay $1,000 United States dollars for that device.
That price point probably won't be good enough for the majority of people -- $1000 to do what you can already do with touch on a screen. Maybe $100 would do it, like a nice pair of earbuds.
Yes, but I would pay a thousand dollars for that device. And given the mediocrity principle, I am certain I'm not the only one willing to pay that much. And if we apply a layer of abstraction and talk about a Google Glass-like device, then, where there is no screen, I think the number(s) go up, both in potential customer base and price capacity.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 44.2 ms ] threadhttps://www.theverge.com/2018/6/6/17433516/ctrl-labs-brain-c...
But this paragraph in the article is interesting and noteworthy:
CTRL-Labs’ work is built on a technology known as differential electromyography, or EMG. The band’s inside is lined with electrodes, and while they’re touching my skin, they measure electrical pulses along the neurons in my arm. These superlong cells are transmitting orders from my brain to my muscles, so they’re signaling my intentions before I’ve moved or even when I don’t move at all.
The point is that it's sensing neural signals, not physical gestures.
So you're right that it's not a brain-computer interface in the sense that EEG is, but it is still arguably a brain-computer interface, given that what it's sensing is neural activity generated by brain.
This question is discussed in the article:
If CTRL-kit doesn’t directly connect to your brain, is it still a brain-computer interface? Reardon argues that the armband is giving people better versions of the same functions they’d get with a headset or implant, using the same kind of neural signals you’d find in the brain. CTRL-Labs obviously reaps some publicity benefits by using a hot technological buzzword, but by claiming the term, it’s also implicitly questioning whether “true” mass-market brain interfaces even make sense.
It just seems that it's a matter of nuance and interpretation rather than being clear-cut.
I am very interested in this technology, and I actually went in on the Myo armband Kickstarter, hoping for something like this. As I've stated in the previous discussion, I generally like the Myo, but its range of gestures is narrow and it unfortunately increases my movement cost quite a lot compared to using some hotkeys.
For input devices, my number one concern is a cost function based on movement. And a huge penalty is applied to any device that makes me move my wrists off of my keyboard to use it. So an external mouse on a mousepad? Fuckin' hate it. The trackpoint on a Thinkpad, though, for example, is at the top of my list of "novel" input devices that I consider as essential to my computing happiness as having a keyboard (or any kind of mouse for GUI input). The Myo armband increases my movement cost quite substantially, so even though I like it and it's not a scam and it generally does what it says on the tin, it's not something that I'll use very often, let alone supplant the ole keyboard and mouse/trackpoint.
I think this technology -- miniaturized and maximally efficient for input (meaning it has nearly perfect ratio of desired-inputs to actual-inputs with very few errors) -- could potentially become as useful for me as the trackpoint. For example, drawing this concept out on a line, I would consider it a masterpiece of an input device if it were precise, accurate and sensitive enough to allow me some range of finger motions that allowed me to "type" text into my phone with one free hand. I'd pay one thousand United States dollars for that device.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17330239
That price point probably won't be good enough for the majority of people -- $1000 to do what you can already do with touch on a screen. Maybe $100 would do it, like a nice pair of earbuds.