ABI Research analysts have confirmed that several manufacturers are preparing to launch Brain-to-Machine Interface (BMI) products in advance of the end-of-year holiday buying season.
According to ABI Research director Jeff Orr, BMI technology won’t be capable of reading thoughts, nor can it be exploited to program an individual to perform nefarious acts. However, tapping into brain activity as a means of understanding human behavior and even controlling an external activity is now possible.
“Hardcore gamers will be the first consumers to buy brain-to-machine interfaces,” Orr explained. “Combining augmented reality, eye-tracking and BMI headgear will give elite players the upper-hand in real-time multiplayer gaming.”
As Orr notes, clinical research trials of BMI or Brain-to-Computer Interfaces (BCI) tech solutions have also chalked up a number of breakthroughs that combine the latest technology and brain-implanted modules to provide advanced robotic prosthetics, mobility controls and communications capabilities to severely afflicted individuals.
As such, revenue from both commercial and medical BMI products is projected to hit $9.7 million in 2015, increasing to $205 million in 2020. Meanwhile, unit volumes for BMI products in 2015 are on track to top 20,000, ultimately increasing to more than 850,000 shipments in 2020.
Commenting on the above-mentioned report, Rambus VP of User Experience (UX) Eliott Jones told us that the popularity of BMI amongst gamers will act as catalyst for wider consumer adoption of the technology.
“As with stand-alone head-mounted displays (HMDs), wider adoption of BMI technology will benefit multiple verticals, including security, which could create a new paradigm in terms of visualizing and interacting with complex Big Data analytics,” he explained. “It is important to note that effectively extracting meaning from a vast amount of captured raw security-related data requires engaging a broader range of perceptual processing in the brain that goes beyond traditional alpha-numeric information.”
In this case, says Jones, augmented reality, eye-tracking and BMI headgear coupled with a highly intuitive and predictive UI will enable security researchers to absorb information and process it with extreme cognitive efficiency.
“This combination of multi-sensory experience and an intuitive design creates an integrated, meaning driven – rather than information driven – analytic environment which serves to optimize a security platform’s efficiency and ultimately helps define its competitive advantage,” he added.
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