I am pretty sure you’re right, they are probably recording alpha waves, possibly combined with heart rate.
Decoding limb joint movements from EEG scalp recordings is basically an unsolved problem (we can barely do it in lab with implants), I doubt an advertising company has cracked it.
Alpha waves refer to the measurable 8-12Hz waves in the electromagnetic field coming out of the human head. They are the clearest "signal" we can read out with eeg ("electro" "encephalo" (brain) "graphy") and usually peak in power over the back of your head.
They are also by far the biggest (measurable) eeg signal change you can manipulate intentionally (other than motion artifacts). Closing your eyes or focusing your attention inwards reduce the power of those oscillations so much it's visible right away just looking with your eyes at the signal trace.
It would be very straightforward to program in decision points to the light show where someone can select an option by tuning their attention inwards or outwards.
TLDR: It's the "press X to doubt" of human-computer interfaces.
There is quite a number of freely available EEG software for different paradigms (one such collection is MOABB - Mother of All BCI Benchmarks, and there’s a huge number of scientific articles).
The biggest bottleneck for a hobbyist is that when using EEG, most paradigms require somewhat expensive hardware to work and that most paradigms still don’t work well with scalp recordings outside a lab environment, even when using mid-cost devices.
There’s also the issue that classifiers usually have to be quite simple because datasets are small, because they are time consuming to record (and after you remove noisy epochs, you have even less data left). Cross-session and cross-subject learning rarely works, since EEG is dependent on so many factors like subjects’ brain anatomy, the type and precise location of electrodes, amount of gel (or lack thereof) and how dried out it is, mood and focus of the subjects, a huge number of environmental factors that influence subjects’ focus and many others.
The only paradigm I have seen to work a bit more reliably than others is Steady State Visual Potentials, because you have extra information that doesn’t need to be learned from EEG (the frequency of visual stimuli is roughly the same as the one in subjects’ occipital lobe).
But the 18th century artist who did portraits and wedding paintings is the today’s (wedding) photographer.
Does it take less money to commission a single wedding photo rather than a wedding painting? Yes. But many more people commission them and usually in tens to hundreds, together with videos, etc.
An 18th century wedding painter wasn’t in the business of paintings, but in the business of capturing memories and we do that today on much larger scale, more often and in a lot of different ways.
I’d also argue more landscape painters exist today than ever.
I assume you’re talking about another country, because in Denmark there was no general curfew under Covid (attendance to events might have required proof of negative COVID test or vaccination, but shops never did).
It’s intentional and requires quite a lot of focus.
The original paper [0] mentions electrodes are placed over Broca’s area (speech production, translates words to mouth movements) and motor area (adjusts the mouth movements). It’s attempted speech, not thoughts.
There is a lot of fear in mainstream media and populace of devices decoding thoughts, but that is a significantly harder problem, at this moment on the level of sci-fi of Civilisation Type II on Kardashev scale. There is a reason why the electrodes are not over Wernicke’s area instead (language comprehension and production).
I find this distinction unnecessarily nitpicky in this context. A BCI can be implement using EEG as an input so yes, you can definitely make a BCI using PiEEG.
130dB SNR is also not too shabby for a low-cost device, I wonder how it compares in a real world scenario with some of the OpenBCI offerings. For now at least it seems to be a cheaper option to OpenBCI Cyton with a comparable performance, unless I missed something.
Grant application and advancement in scientific careers. As a junior researcher, you either publish in impactful peer reviewed journals or you don’t get your PhD. As a senior researcher, you either publish in impactful peer reviewed journals or your PhD student doesn’t get the PhD degree (this hurts both of you). Moreover, you won’t get grants so you can’t even hire a PhD student in the first place.
While scientists’ prestige might be a part of the equation, it’s mostly the academic leaderships and fonds that have brought us here.
Not only does English get you by in most big cities, a fair amount of European citizens are multilingual and often it’s the neighbouring countries that people speak the language of.
You'll bet by in English as a tourist, but you probably aren't getting a job with just English, and you're definitely not holding down a full social life either. Despite the EU's efforts at integration, Europe is still effectively separated by languages and cultures way beyond anything in North America.
> Every in-demand field of study is guarded by the all-important grade-point average from High School. If yours is too low, well, sorry, you’re just not going to study psychology or become a midwife. It doesn’t matter whether you came from an underprivileged background, did a million extracurriculars, or hail from an ethnic minority. You either make the grade for your first choice or you pick something else to study.
This is not Denmark specifically, it’s just Europe, and it’s not even true.
In Denmark there’s something called Quota 2, which is an admission track that is not based on the average, but on extra-curriculars, volunteering, work experience, …
Ofc it’s easier if you have the average and a lot depends on what subjects you choose to graduate from, but not all is lost even if you chose the wrong subjects. If you need let’s say extra physics classes, a lot of universities/schools offer pre-university courses which can teach you the subject in the summer and you can apply for your dream programme the same year.
A lot of people actually start university and then later find out it’s not what they like and switch to another programme or (trade) school after a year. Generally, in Denmark, you can study what you want, unless you’re really ill-equipped for some reason (but then you probably have bigger issues to resolve first).
That being said, I don’t know about any way how you can get into a university programme based on being a member of an ethnic minority.
Decoding limb joint movements from EEG scalp recordings is basically an unsolved problem (we can barely do it in lab with implants), I doubt an advertising company has cracked it.