Pimax’s Sword Lite Controllers

Pimax began officially talking about its Sword Series virtual reality (VR) controllers, that at the time looked to rival the Index design. If you pre-ordered a pair or are simply looking for an alternative VR controller system there’s some good news, the Pimax Sword Lite’s have finally entered mass production.

With the Pimax Sword Lite, customers will have a second option, one that is fully SteamVR compatible supporting both 1.0 and 2.0 base stations; four hours of use per charge and what Pimax calls a special protection coating that provides a deluxe non-slip texture to the controller.

More information:

https://www.vrfocus.com/2021/09/pimaxs-sword-lite-controllers-available-in-october/

VR and BCIs Help Paralysed Patient to Walk

Patients left paralysed by severe spinal cord injuries have recovered the ability to move their legs after training with an exoskeleton linked to their brain – with one even able to walk using two crutches. Scientists developed the Walk Again Project, based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, thinking that they could enable paraplegics to move about using the exoskeleton controlled by their thoughts. But they were surprised to discover that during the training, the eight patients all started to regain the sense of touch and movement below the injury to their spine. It was previously thought that the nerves in seven of the patients’ spines had been completely severed.

But the researchers now believe that a few nerves survived, and these were reactivated by the training, which may have rewired circuits in the brain. The training involved the patients using virtual reality to control a computer avatar with a brain-machine interface. So, when they thought about walking forward, the avatar would move as if it was their body. They then used the same system to control a robot and finally an exoskeleton that the patients could wear. At the opening ceremony for the World Cup in Brazil two years ago, a young man who had been paralysed from the chest down symbolically kicked off the tournament using a brain-machine interface and exoskeleton.

More information:

https://www.openbiomedical.org/paralysed-patient-walks-again-thanks-to-virtual-reality-and-brain-computer-interfaces/

BCI Turns Imagined Handwriting into Text

Electrodes in a paralyzed man’s brain turned his imagined handwriting into words typed on a screen. The translation from brain to text may ultimately point to ways to help people with disabilities like paralysis communicate using just their thoughts. A 65-year-old man had two grids of tiny electrodes implanted on the surface of his brain. The electrodes read electrical activity in the part of the brain that controls hand and finger movements. Although the man was paralyzed from the neck down, he imagined writing letters softly with his hand.

With an algorithm, researchers then figured out the neural patterns that went with each imagined letter and transformed those patterns into text on a screen. From his brain activity alone, the participant produced 90 characters, or 15 words, per minute. That’s about as fast as the average typing rate of people around the participant’s age on smartphones. The thought-to-text system worked even long after the injury. Thought-powered communication is still in its early stages. Research with more volunteers is needed, but there’s little doubt that this will work again in other people. The researchers plan to test the system with a person who has lost both the ability to move and speak.

More information:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/brain-implants-translate-handwriting-text