BCI Meeting 2010

Special Sessions

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

1:00 – 4:00 p.m.

#1. OpenViBE Tutorial: Novel Open-Source Software to Design, Test, and Use BCIs

Location: Curlew

OpenViBE is open-source software devoted to the design, testing, and use of brain-computer interfaces. The OpenViBE platform consists of a set of software modules that can be integrated easily and efficiently to design BCI applications. Key features of the platform are its modularity, its high-performance, its portability, its multiple-users facilities, and its connection with high-end/virtual-reality displays. The “designer” of the platform enables the building of complete scenarios based on existing software modules. It uses a dedicated graphical language and a simple Graphical User Interface (GUI). This software is available on the INRIA Forge under the terms of the LGPL-V2 license (http://openvibe.inria.fr ).

Tutorial: We will describe how to use OpenViBE, its GUI, and its programming tools. We will explain how to write BCI scenarios with OpenViBE to develop BCI applications without writing a single line of code. We will give illustrative scenarios such as real-time visualization of brain activity in 3D, P300 Speller, and virtual- reality and video games -- all based on OpenViBE.

Audience: BCI designers and BCI users. No specific skills in programming are required for the tutorial, which will mainly use the Graphical User Interface of our software. Each participant can use his/her personal computer (LINUX/Windows) to install OpenViBE before the tutorial.

Download OpenViBE from: http://openvibe.inria.fr/?q=download

#2. Monetizing BCI Technology

Location: Surf & Sand

Consumer product companies are recognizing the potential of BCI for commercial product innovation. Popular media facilitate this awareness, and the market for BCI-based devices is growing. Nevertheless, years of BCI knowledge are locked in institutional vaults, in scientists’ minds, and in unfulfilled patents. With more EEG-driven devices under development, NeuroSky is facing a wave of demand.

This 60-minute session by NeuroSky will shed light on insights, trends, and business models for monetizing your BCI IP - to further grants and revenue. Immediately after the presentation, NeuroSky executives will be available for individual private consultation sessions with conference attendees interested in exacting more financial value from their innovative work.

#3. BBCI Presents: BCI Competition V

Location: Triton

The goal of the BCI Competition V is to validate signal-processing and classification methods for BCIs. The development of the BCI Competition V is a community process and this Special Session will focus on discussing and identifying current BCI data-analysis problems that are suitable for a competition. Examples of some of the problems to be discussed are: long-term recordings that pose interesting new problems in terms of non-stationarities in the data; attentional processes; and others.

#4. BCIs for emotional and musical communication

Location: Chapel

Scott Makeig and colleagues from the Swartz Center, Institute for
Neural Computation, University of California at San Diego, are preparing a musical
performance for the final evening of the meeting. This performance will include live original chamber music combined with EEG-selected recorded and synthesized
sounds -- a 'piece for brain and (mini) orchestra.' A unique feature of the music is that the EEG selection of sounds will be based on the BCI performer (the 'brainist') who will imagine the emotional characters of the different sound choices. The BCI classifier
will then attempt to correctly classify the feeling state of the subject. The workshop will feature a discussion, led by Makeig, of the concept of 'emotion BCIs,' with reference to recent results by Onton and Makeig (Human Front. Neurosci, 2009), and a brief history of musical and other artistic performances modulated by EEG ('artistic BCIs') by Mullen and Leslie. The group will then hold an open 'dress rehearsal' of the piece.