Sony Wants to Get on Your Nerves

Ah, the patent application process. Without it, we wouldn’t have had early warning of motion controllers, Sony’s streaming ambitions or the weirdly ugly people Microsoft expects to be playing its next console. Well, now it’s turned up a slightly odd application made by Sony Computer Entertainment. SCE, it seems, wants to monitor your nervous system. The application seems to insist that Sony has come up with a way to measure your nerves and predict your next course of action in “one or more body parts.”

Here’s the application introduction:

An electronic device may be controlled using nerve analysis by measuring a nerve activity level for one or more body parts of a user of the device using one or more nerve sensors associated with the electronic device. A relationship can be determined between the user’s one or more body parts and an intended interaction by the user with one or more components of the electronic device using each nerve activity level determined. A control input or reduced set of likely actions can be established for the electronic device based on the relationship determined.

Those of you with really good memories might recall that Microsoft is also trying to do something similar with biometrics. Will the next generation of consoles interact with us on an instinctive level?

Sony Computer Entertainment has also filed an application for software to aid in the development of heads-up displays. That one says it is for “presenting a graphic display of information as it is normally produced by a process implemented with computer software; selecting an arbitrary range of objects within the graphic display; applying one or more filters to the processing of the objects in the arbitrary range; and changing the processing of the objects dynamically in response to the filters.” Which sounds like it might have more to do with the headset technology they’re still working on perfecting but it seems perfectly suited to the next generation of home consoles.

Finally, for today at least, SCE has also filed an application for a “Gaze-Assisted Computer Interface.” That system is able to detect where a user is “gazing” and process that as a selection within software. It also, interestingly, accounts for detecting a user’s gaze location and using that as a measure to predict where their physical interaction was intended to end up. This might be a method of refining calibration of motion controllers but it also sounds like it might be wonderful for the progress being made in assisted computing for those with disabilities.

Source: USPA, USPA and USPA

21 Comments

  1. Oh man… That song needs to come to Singstar.

    • Are you allowed comment of the week? Because this should be it :P

  2. So they’ve patented something that will know what I want to do before I, consciously, know I want to do it. Scary, but awesome

    • If that was the case they’d know how p*ssed off people are with the unwanted SingStar on the XMB.

  3. Next thing a patent for teleporting our minds in the game or maybe a patent to see how comfortable our ass is sitting on the sofa or maybe a patent of how our body posture is like when playing games or maybe you get the point

  4. So instead of trying to reduce the response time on displays to allow us to more quicly react to a bullet coming our way, they have decided to make us control quicker by stepping in between our brain thinking to pull the trigger and our hands actually pulling the trigger?

    • that seems like what this patent is aimed at, yes. It’s crap like this that’s holding back the development of hover cars, isn’t it?

      • maglev is the way forward, as you could then control the speed of cars so no breaking the speed limit and a feedback system in to the ‘roads’ could prevent all crashes!

    • so, a super easy, easy mode. where all you need to do is think happy thought about winning.

  5. Wasn’t there a Wii game that did this with the EA Active heart rate monitors? Nerve input would be clever, I can see myself screwing up my eyes, going red faced and looking constipated trying to bend a spoon!

  6. Controlling games with your mind and/or slight movement sounds interesting. And like you say could massively help people with disabilities control things in the real world.

  7. …I don’t know, all these ideas kind of lead to prototype Mobile Suit Technology.

  8. I know a song that will get on your nerves. It’s called Oh baby. *hangs head in shame for crap joke*

    Yeah, i don’t trust anything that uses the nervous system as i would imagine that if the game crashed, you would be fecked. Not to mention you would look very silly when using it. And if a Souls game uses that, it probably won’t be good for your health. ;)

    • “wup, wup, wup wup wuppa Gangnam style”

      • wup wup wup, heeeeeeey sexy laday, wup wup wup.
        (did I just do that?)

      • we are the cheeky girls you are the cheeky boys

      • I.LOVE.GIRLS!

  9. Sounds interesting, but unless the game makes you feel like you are there, like virtual reality but better, then this will be pointless.

    • patents dude patents no need to question what the quality will be on a non exist product.

      “stargate ay? hope they’ve got a good wi if service otherwise I won’t be travelling”

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