Welcome to our version of the Best of 2021– EMOTIV’s Neurotech edition! We are celebrating the groundbreaking accomplishments, the feel-good stories, and the best minds (pardon the pun) of the year with our EEG headsets!
1. Rehab made fun with brain generated art
The team at BCI4Kids Calgary developed a BCI-enabled pediatric rehabilitation program using the EMOTIV EPOC X, and let their brains paint pictures that their own hands never could. While using just their thoughts, they were able to let their creativity (and the paint) fly. Check out some of the stunning creations from John, an 8-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, at brainpaintbyjohn on Instagram.
2. Hollywood’s fascination with the human mind
For those who have seen the new Hugh Jackman thriller ‘Reminiscence’, you might have recognised one of our very own EMOTIV headsets, the EPOC X. The film stars some big Hollywood names, including Rebecca Ferguson, Thandie Newton, and Cliff Curtis. In summary, it’s about a man who uses a machine that can see people’s memories to try to find his missing love. While Hollywood’s fascination with the human mind remains science fiction, we’re ecstatic to see the EMOTIV EPOC mobile EEG headset being worn by such talented actors.
3. Music collides with neuroscience
Using just the mind to create music. Although it might sound a little far-fetched to a lot of people. But, that is precisely the route that musician Angie C has take – a lover of music and science. She has found the perfect way to merge two of her passions into creating something truly unique. With her latest album “Star Seeds” dropping recently, Angie C spoke with EMOTIV about using Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) devices to create a really special genre of music and sound that she truly believes could be the future. Read more here.
4. Exploring inclusive design and accessibility
Researchers in the BCI field are racing to develop technology and fill the need for wheelchair control. One of the most cited articles utilizing EMOTIV headsets is from a team out of Greece using BCI as an EEG-based control system for driving an electromechanical wheelchair. They used the E Flex with 32 saline sensors to capture data sets from 10 different patients. Learn more about BCI, wheelchair technology and their published article here.
5. The stress of unreliable technology and its negative effects
While working from home becoming the new norm, reliable computers and software become more important than ever. Our collaboration with computer giant, DELL Technologies, provided unprecedented measures of how unpleasant work experiences with bad technology can impact our brain. “Bad experiences affect you regardless of computer literacy,” says Cile Montgomery, who leads customer experience initiatives for Dell. “But young people seem to be even more impacted, because they expect technology to work”. Read more here.
6. Marketing powered by brain data
There has been a growing trend in the use of EEG & neuroscience in marketing research because of costly and unreliable traditional research methods such as surveys, interviews, in-person focus groups, etc. Take a look at how this research group used EMOTIV EPOC to build an EEG based intelligent consumer preference prediction system. Read their published paper here.
7. Emotivate Change Hackathon
We hosted our first virtual Hackathon, Emotivate Change, to build applications that can help people with different abilities. Especially, thank you to our judges, sponsors, and most importantly all the participants! Congratulations again to the winners. Of course, we’re already planning a few exciting events next year with new partners and prizes!
8. Advancing neuroscience research beyond the lab
Continuing with the firsts of the year, we launched EmotivLABS, the first-ever crowdsourced platform for neuroscience research. On top of offering their valuable contribution to groundbreaking scientific research from the comfort of their own home, our community of EEG headset owners earned money on their own time and learned about their own brain! On the flip side, researchers virtually connected with participants from all over the world allowing for more meaningful conclusions from a larger demographic, while also improving diversity and representation in research. Therefore, we’re excited to collaborate with researchers around the world to conduct more virtual experiments in 2022. To learn more, go here.
And that is our wrap up of 2021! Thanks to our incredible community – EMOTIV has been cited in over 1300 academic articles and logged over 80 thousand user-shared EEG recordings with our headsets in 2021. Above all, we are excited to see all of you push the boundaries of what we know of the human brain and be at the center of your innovative ideas. We are committed to providing precise, affordable, easy to use mobile EEG technology to help push your research to the next level.
Happy Holidays to everyone in the EMOTIV community!
As a result, our EMOTIV community spans across the entire globe with other 100,000 headset owners. We want to hear more about your project and how it is changing the landscape of understanding the brain. To begin with, email us to tell us your story and get featured on our website.
To learn more about EEG or EMOTIV technology, you can book a demonstration here.
