Get Ready for the Ultimate IGN UK Pub Quiz!

Like the idea of trading the encyclopaedic games and movie knowledge stored in your brain for money-can’t-buy prizes? Then say hello to the IGN UK Pub Quiz, your chance to prove you really are the country’s fount of entertainment knowledge!

For the next IGN UK Pub Quiz – taking place on October 11, starting at 6.30pm – we’re planning something rather special as we’re bringing it to the London Games Festival for the first time, in aid of the video games charity SpecialEffect, helping people with disabilities enjoy video games. It’ll be the toughest quiz we’ve put together yet – if you don’t know the name of James Pond’s nemesis then chances are you might struggle – but as a reward we’ll be giving away the sweetest swag you can lay your hands on.

That’s not all. Once the victorious team has been crowned GamerDisco will be taking control of the decks to ensure the celebrations continue long into the night.

If you want to get involved then you need to put together a team of six people, at a cost of £30 per team. Remember, all proceeds are going straight to SpecialEffect so it really is for a good cause, and every penny does make a difference.

You’ll need to be fast though – we’re expecting demand to be high and there’s only space for nine team, so head on over to the IGN SpecialEffect registration page and guarantee your space now!

Find out more about the amazing work SpecialEffect is doing but checking out the website.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com

Researchers Read Minds with EEG Headsets, Kind Of

The EPOC Neuroheadset from Emotiv can transform brain activity into usable data for interactions with computer applications and games. A team of researchers from Oxford, Geneva, and Berkeley have turned that $300 input into a brain-hacking device, and now claim that they'll soon be able to pick sensitive information right out of the human brain. The trick is, the brain doesn't even need to agree.

Earlier this month, Ivan Martinovic and his colleagues published a paper titled "On the Feasibility of Side-Channel Attacks With Brain-Computer Interfaces," which they subsequently presented at the 21st USENIX Security Symposium. Their research focused on how to interpret the P300 signal, a brain wave associated with "meaningful recognition", as they received the data on these signals from devices like the EPOC Neuroheadset and the Mindset headset from Neurosky.

During their tests, the research team showed images of bank cards, people's faces, and other stimuli to twenty-eight subjects, then used some proprietary software to better understand the meaning behind the subjects' P300 activity. They discovered that their guesses of the subjects' personal information (associations, PIN numbers, banks) became 15-40% less random. It's not the ground-breaking success that they team was looking for, but it opens the potential for improving this kind of software in other capacities.

For example, the team suggested that because the readings are dependent on the brain's reaction to familiar stimuli, it could be used in lie detection or to discover relevant information in a criminal investigation. Apparently, similar techniques have already been tested as lie detectors but have yet to be formally adopted.

The news here isn't so much that the researchers were able to guess slightly better than before. It's the implication of the research that's startling. We already knew that cheap brain-reading headsets like the EPOC could process rudimentary movement-free controls, and finding yet another, potentially more insidious use for our unintended brain activity could open up a whole new field of neurological and technological interaction. For now, your PIN number is still safe.

Sources: CNET, Emotiv, CBS Seattle, USENIX

Dan Crabtree is an I.T. guy and freelance writer with words on IGN, and a league of other gaming news outlets. His dog is considered handsome and well-read. You can find him (the human) on Twitter and IGN.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com