OCZ NIA review - Neural Impulse Actuator

Gaming Devices 123 Page 5 of 8 Published by

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The Control Software

The Software

Now it's obvious that this hardware needs some sort of software to translate the signals into actual action in your game. OCZ teamed up with 'Brainfingers Technology' for the software part of the device. And quite frankly it's very easy to learn software in a friendly GUI. This software is called the Brainfinger panel.

The Brainfinger software will take you through a couple of learning steps like how to use the headset, calibration of this device, assigning presets and game profiles, practicing and much much more.

OCZ Technology NIA

There are a lot of variables you need to take into consideration. Hair for example, the headset does not appear to work very well through hair, so make sure you touch the skin. If you have a lot of issues, here's a tip... try applying a moisturizing cream to your forehead.

Calibrating the sensors. Put the headset on and relax. If everythings normal, the yellow graph in the screen must get below the green graph. As you can see, I had a very hard time accomplishing that. It tallies up to this; when you are motionless, the signal from the sensors is close to zero.

OCZ Technology NIA

Calibration of the NIA for muscle signals is rather easy and entails nothing more than concentrating on some sort of gyroscope in the middle of the screen. During a timeframe of several seconds the software measures your muscle activity. The small spikes in the line graph shown above-right represent instances where we purposely tensed our facial muscles.

Bear in mind OCZ warns that there should not be electromagnetically noisy devices near the NIA. All interference will be registered by the NIAs sensors. Our offices are LOADED with such devices.

OCZ Technology NIA

The next section, entitled 'BrainFingers', is where things get a little tricky. It's the EEG part of the training process and here you receive an overview of each of the sensors and their current activity in bar graph format. By itself weird to see... your brain activity I mean.

You'll notice both Alpha and Beta brain waves climbing up and down in fairly random patterns, making you wonder what the heck is happening inside that grey matter.

Alpha brain waves show electromagnetic radiation with a frequency of 8-12Hz that can be observed when the brain is awake but the eyes are closed. Alpha rhythms get weaker during sleep. Beta brain waves correlate to a lot of mental activity, to the state of anxiety, concern, worry or concentration. Beta brain waves have frequencies above 12Hz.

For me brain waves mapping was impossible in a timeframe of merely days to learn, which left me only glance and muscle movement. A good start however is the practice program provided by OCZ. This test program actually brings back some good memories... it's Pong.

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