Toys that detect brainwaves

Biofeedback has been used in medicine on and off again for a while. It's hard to learn how to control processes in your body for which you have no feedback. But if you're hooked up to a machine which gives you feedback you can learn to control things we usually think of as beyond our will. You can learn to control your heartbeat at will. Migraine sufferers can learn to draw blood into their hands and relieve the migraine symptoms. But it's not clear exactly what's relieving the symptoms, the type of brain activity necessary to control blood flow or the blood flow or both or perhaps neither. That among other things is why it's not established medical practice.

Where can I buy this stuff? When's it going to be out? Any hardware out there that we could connect with the computer and program ourselves?<p>(this is pretty neat: <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/09/video-mattel-mind-flex-hands-and-heads-on/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/09/video-mattel-mind-flex-ha...</a>)

I would have killed for one of these when I was a kid.<p>But I wonder what health effects, if any, these devices will have? It sounds like the manufacturers will imply beneficial effects, much like they do with the Brain Age games -- despite little evidence for either. We really have no idea what long-term effects these devices will have, especially for children.

<a href="http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/" rel="nofollow">http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/</a><p>For the hackers.

Anyone care to daydream about the possibilities and consequences as this becomes ubiquitous and evolves?<p>Building thermostats decide temperature using a hedonistic utilitarian function? Waiting room TV's that find the best channel for the people in the room on their own? Hacker news karma happens automatically via your mind-over-matter device?<p>MOM becomes the abbreviation du jour as mind over matter is too wordy, so mom domain names get more popular.

We need a cheap eeg usb device with an online game store of mind games. Maybe come out with an eeg for the wii and let wiiware titles use it.

I wonder how hackable these toys will be. If it is possible to get the raw data into a computer, I definitely want one.