The Force is in Your Brain

It’s about time we threw away our button-based controllers, our motion-based Wiimotes, and our hipster douchebag-based iPhone touch screens. Mind control is the future, people. No, mad scientists, I’m not talking about controlling other people’s minds (for sex). That’s a ways off, so you just go on ahead with your erotic fantasy fiction. Anyway, it looks like mind/machine interfaces might be making their way to our homes via toys—specifically, the Star Wars Force Trainer. Using a modified version of EEG technology, your snot-nosed kid (or, let’s face it, you) will wear a headset that detects your brain activity and translates it into a command for the toy. But before you get some telekinetic fantasy swirling in your head, you should know that the “toy” consists entirely of a plastic tube with an air-levitated ping pong ball inside. Using your head meat, you control the power of the air flow, thus raising and lowering the ball. Exciting! Also, the things beeps Star Wars noises at you and says stuff. And all this fun can be yours for about $100 later this year. More details here.