Neurophilosophy has found some fantastic footage of someone controlling their Second Life avatar using a brain-computer interface developed by the Biomedical Engineering Lab from Keio University in Japan.
From watching the video, navigation is certainly quite possible, if not a little awkward. One of the striking things is that the person cannot seem to be able to easily move forward and change direction at the same time.
Presumably, this is quite a tricky problem for a brain-computer interface (BCI), as they work by converting electrical patterns from the brain into keyboard responses.
While your average Halo player will be able to combine key presses to maybe move, change direction, shoot and lock at the same time, it’s difficult both for the BCI to learn to distinguish each of these commands, as well as for the person to train themselves to think in the ‘right way’ so the brain generates distinct enough patterns for each combination.
Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see quite how far the technology has gone. A fairly simply rig now allows control within a consumer environment.
Not quite The Matrix but still a useful development for a technology that might seriously benefit people with paralysis.
Link to Neurophilosophy with brain-computer interface / Second Life footage.
Mind Hacks 