Gameplayer

Kevin Caseyon the evolution of game controllers.

HUMAN hands may become obsolete. With it's Balance Board controller, the best-selling Wii Fit means you play the game with your feet and control what happens on screen by shifting your weight around. With no buttons, it promises to get the blood pumping to places games have never been.

It's the latest addition to the growing line of alternative game controllers. Gamers can now control play with their feet and body using mats, boards, exercise machines and cameras. Each game is like a workout - annoyingly. For higher-evolved beings, don't despair.

Coming soon to a PC near you: the funny hat that allows you to control games by thought alone.

Many people may have seen the recent video of a lab monkey, arms tied by his side, controlling a robot arm with his thoughts. He guides tasty treats to his mouth without so much as lifting a finger. The only problem is, it's too gruesome for everyday use because it needs brain implants to work.

Thankfully, there is an easier way to harness thought. Well-known in medical circles, Electroencephalography (EEG) is used in hospitals to study brain waves. It usually comes complete with suckers, conductive gel and men in white coats. Enter the Emotiv Headset, a non-invasive way to measure EEG and use it to control a personal computer. Following years of research by a team of Californian brain scientists and computer boffins, it goes on sale next Christmas for $299.

One of a number of "thought controllers" on the way, the Emotiv Headset uses sensors to monitor the brain's electrical activity. It's ideal for controlling an avatar in Second Life, its creators say. Think "left" and it goes left. Even emotional states such as happy, sad and panic drive in-game activity.

In the future, in order to finish a stealth game, you might have to remain calm, or you'll be caught. The headset also raises the possibility of new genres such as meditation games ("you must empty your mind to get to the next level").

Peripherals are a new frontier in gaming. Take the Third Space force-feedback vest. Invented as a medical device, it has been adapted to the games market while it awaits approval for use on heart patients. Wearers feel torso-pain (simulated by compressed air) when they get shot.

Frankly, if you told me that while I was wearing an Emotiv Headset, my mind would boggle and that would be game over.

American futurologist Dr Ray Kurzweil recently raised the possibility that brain-computer combos will be commonplace by the 2020s. As a futurologist, he makes what many say are far-fetched predictions, but the sceptics were already out for him back in the 1980s when he predicted explosive growth for the internet in the 1990s.