oops - sorry Tim. Still on a mental break and forgot to check my private inbox. I'll reply to your message very soon - sounds like you have a killer job I'm a little jealous you can play with such fancy toys! I'm also a physicist so you can see I might get a little machine envy every now and then. I'm in if we can work it so I can play with the oversized TV tube in the building next door

Hi gmac,
I did send you a private message on January 6 as suggested. I wonder if you have received it? Note that I had to do that via one of the forums ("Application and Games", I think), as messages on this ("Reviews") page do not have any "Message" buttons associated with them (I have checked several different Internet browsers to make sure that this option is indeed unavailable here).

The Message button at the bottom left of each message sends a private message to the person who made that particular post. Easy to start a private discussion!

Hi gmac,
I agree with your proposed approach to analysing the "business case", but before attempting that in earnest, one would probably have to address the key questions mentioned in your last sentence, i.e. the need to determine potential "benefit to the core product" and / or identify "significant markets in new application areas". I do have some relevant preliminary ideas. May be this could be discussed "off-line" sometime? I don't have your direct email, but you do have mine :). This certainly does not have to be converted into a business case, and could remain a subject of a weekend hobby instead, but I've always believed that the best results are achieved when the two are merged. I guess that your company may have been originally created this way?

Ah - business... so, figure out the costs of development. The hardware is there already, the data format is what you get (14 channels, 127.97 samples per sec approx, 14 bit resolution, around 0.5uV resolution, maximum of about 1/8 sample or ~1 millisec phase lock between channels - this is important to know for proper phase mapping).

Now figure the cost of developing the basic detection - there are open source LORETA modules out there to serve as a guide, plenty of research and some new methods to fold in. Data collection costs, time and energy etc to figure out what's happening, verification somehow (? - fMRI would be ideal but I don't think you could wear the headset inside the magnets. Maybe PET? Or hope for the best? depends on the ultimate application)

Now figure what markets to address - self-help, quasi-medical, medical, curiosity, gaming and enhanced detections, research etc.

Finally get to the size of the markets and the kind and cost of products you could make, then put them in context against existing and predicted products.

How to fund? Govt grants, investors, hobbyists and open source community, pre-licensing etc.

Subtract cost of product and sales, development costs etc from projected revenue then figure if you eat or starve in between. Start putting on fat now, you may need it. Worked for me so far

Seriously, how much time and effort do you think would be required? We've always had an interest in localisation as a more direct method for some of our planned affectiv detections and maybe as an improved Cognitiv process. Very little of what we do in our current detection suites uses phase information to maximum effect. We would certainly participate if we could see some future benefit to our core product, or if we could see significant markets in new application areas.