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The online gaming universe is finally taking shape (for consoles that is). Ofcourse, Microsoft and Sony are taking the lead.

I have a problem here with microsoft. With the release of their xbox and its built-in ethernet adapter, you'd think that the flagship microsoft/bungee FPS Halo would come equiped to play in the online environment. You'd think. The only type of online gaming that can be achieved with Halo is connecting multiple xboxes together to play with a maximum of 16 players. Thus, if I wanna have a frag fest with my buddy in DC or some 13 yr old kid in Tokyo, I'm out of luck. Now I know Microsoft has missed the boat before, but this is ridiculous.

Is this a technical issue, I know Halo is hardware intensive. Hopefully, Halo II, due to be released sometime in the next century will address this problem.

Sony doesn't get off spot clean either. 200 dollars for an ethernet adapter? Seriously, it's basically a NIC I could buy from my local vendor for 34.99. What's with the markup Sony? I know there's a subscription included, but still.

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I've been interested in nMRI and brain mapping technologies since my days as a neuro researcher.

Some thoughts on this,

I think brain imaging should be used in the product design of human machine interfaces. Imaging of the brain is a better means by which to determine the effectiveness of an interface than simple questionaires or sample product tests. More on this later...

Also, why doesn't my computer know how I'm feeling? Physiological responses indicating stress, or fear, or euphoria are relatively easy to record. Wouldn't it be nice if my first person shooter knew when I was frightened, so as to pop up another enemy from a dark corner or change to a particularly spooky sound track. A mouse, or game pad, with a heart and galvanic response monitor would do the trick to begin with. This could be expanded to include iris monitoring technologies, EEG and EMG recording techniques to monitor alert levels, brain wave patterns, and muscle response.

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