What is the future of gaming? Can it evolve to an extent that it suppress the use of a keyboard or mouse? These are the questions that the OCZ NIA that we have with us can answer. NIA is the acronym for Neutral Impulse Actuator and is a device with advance technology that claims to read your brainwaves and helps you improve your gameplay.

The NIA is a band that you put on your head with three diamond shaped sensors on the front that come in contact to your forehead. This head band is attached to the NIA Box that reads and interprets your brain activity which in tern is connected to the PC via a USB cable. The NIA also detects muscle movements such as clenching your teeth or raising an eyebrow, or even your glance. Alpha brain signals are associated to images and what you watch while beta brain signals kick in when you start to think logically.

OCZ NIA

The NIA does allow you to control your character’s movement within a game, such as Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament, without using the keyboard or mouse. However, it has its limitation as the technology is fairly new. Instead, OCZ encourages the use of NIA along with your keyboard and mouse to help increase your reaction time within the game that you play.

The software provided with the NIA is where you calibarate the device to your needs. The calibaration section is mainly for muscle movements and is done by starting at a gyroscope displayed on the screen. The BrainFingers is the section where you can view your alpha and beat signals and your glance activity. You will also be required to tweak your key presses in accordance with the different features of the NIA. You could set the movement of your character through glance, firing your weapon with the muscle movement and may be even reload the weapon through the alpha and beta signals. Again, these settings will need to be worked on till you get the right combination. To test your settings, you can try out a simple game of Pong which comes along with the software.

Even after calibrating the NIA, do not expect immediate results as you will need to completely change the way you play before you see results. If you are an average gamer and just like to play for fun, this pricey ($109.00) this really not be your cup of tea.

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