Guess in which country someone would think it a great idea to develop big, furry cat ears that sit on your head and are supposed to show your mood. If you guessed Japan, you would be right. A little sensor arm presses against your forehead, and relays signals to a small analysis unit. “Mood” may be overstating things a little – according to NeuroSky, who developed developed the underlying technology, this unit shows only three states. “Relaxed” causes the ears to point down, while “focused” causes them to point up. If you happen to be simultaneously relaxed AND focused, the ears rotate continuously. (I’m guessing that having rotating cat ears on my head would disturb both my focus and relaxation, so any rotation period would be limited…) The actual creator of the fuzzy ear unit is Neurowear.
CNET did an on-screen “test” of the spinning ears, and it looked like they had difficulty keeping a straight face for the process:
Not everyone buys into even the limited claims for this device. A tweet from @Sands_Research, the Twitter account of Sands Research, a neuromarketing firm that uses a full EEG cap to measure brain activity, commented, “Neuro Snake Oil Salesmen – Calling muscle signals (EMG) “EEG brainwaves” again. Better label – a toy.”
I doubt if the cat-ear inventors anticipate a lot of serious use. How serious can you be when you have rotating cat ears on your head? Here’s an additional video from Neurowear:
Sands Research actually contacted us regarding our tech but never bought. Our consumer products do not read EMG (muscle movement); we filter that out. It can be a toy, it can be medical – it depends on the applications our partners develop and the products of ours they decide to use.
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Only in Japan..
I might go there in a few months though, I might fetch a pair so that other people are able to uhh… read my mood from a pair of cat ears?
All I’m gonna say is I WANT THEM!!!