Club Jade

StarWars.com got hold of Uncle Milton Industries’ Executive Vice President Frank Adler to get him to explain the toy that had us all boggling last month.

No, USA Today is reporting this one straight, complete with comments from Howard Roffman. The Force Trainer “uses brain waves to allow players to manipulate a sphere.” Naturally.

No, you’re not tapping into some “all-powerful force controlling everything,” as Han Solo said in the movies. But you are reaching out with mind power via one of the first mass-market brain-to-computer products. “It’s been a fantasy everyone has had, using The Force,” says Howard Roffman, president of Lucas Licensing.

…In the Force Trainer, a wireless headset reads your brain activity, in a simplified version of EEG medical tests, and the circuitry translates it to physical action. If you focus well enough, the training sphere, which looks like a ping-pong ball, will rise in the tower.

Call me when they start making the toy lightsabers with real light, okay? (via)