The countdown to the 32nd annual Banff World Media Festival is on. InteraXon CEO Ariel Garten can’t wait to reveal BCI’s place in the near-term future of interactive content.
The conference, which runs from June 12-15, features talks by a vast array of new media and technology leaders. Ariel is set to kick off the nextMEDIA stream of the event, the morning of Monday June 13th, with a keynote speech about our mission here at InteraXon. Here’s the rundown.
In an increasingly interactive media environment, it’s becoming crucial for digital platforms to filter out irrelevant information. Search engines and digital content providers are getting better and better at catering to the user’s unique consumption habits, through the application of predictive algorithms. But there is still something missing from the mainstream commercial sphere – what’s going on in our minds.
As Ariel will show, thought-controlled technologies provide a very tangible “next step” for our interaction with digital content. By now we know our brainwaves can act as a control mechanism for a whole host of devices. But brain-computer interfaces can also work to read the user’s various emotional states. Through BCI, our moods can be converted into packets of information. From there, the devices that give us our TV shows, music, internet access, and so on, can actually respond to how we feel. This is “smart” content.
Imagine software that tags video for moments of salience, or a computer interface that re-sizes itself as soon as you get frustrated. This is what we’re working toward – a new level of media participation in which content is relational to the internal state of the user.
In today’s “global village,” brainwaves can be an invaluable tool for the organization of an overwhelming amount of digital information. But even more exciting is this: thought-controlled technologies have the potential to shape new media even further into a mode of self-expression. The human-computer dynamic can shift dramatically once the computer understands its operator on a level beyond the command. In other words, BCI can make our experience of media a direct experience of ourselves. With this, it’s all about “how I want to feel,” versus “what I feel like watching.” We call this “intertainment.”
With some pretty cool demos on deck, Ariel will explore these themes and more at the nextMEDIA conference. Stay tuned for more updates this weekend as she touches down in Banff.
You can keep up-to-date with the conference at www.banffmediafestival.com.
