I like the sound of it already. The ability to move prosthetics with the mind using just a cap rather than full surgery to insert a data port. Read here.
Now obviously, like voice recognition software, it is going to take a bit of tailoring for each user but as our knowledge of the brain increases then we should be able to just put a few sensors on key points on our heads and read everything.
Only downside is with the way our political systems are going downhill it seems its going to be a bad time for people to be looking at things like this. Put a helmet on a terrorist (Or someone that speaks out about a government) and it’ll be the best lie detector you can buy. Only 75% accurate, well the odds are…. Judge puts Black cap on.
Now when I close my eyes and imagine something. I can see it in my mind. How long before we have images being dragged from our minds for viewing? Sounds a big leap but sometime the first steps are the hardest.
I’m not sure this is a step forward – and yes, I’ve always considered direct brain machine interaction was possible.
My reason for wondering if it is a step forward is because I also think it would be more advantageous to use the actual nerve impulses to do the controlling – it might also be possible to give feedback that way.
There is also the point you make about government misuse of the technology and I don’t trust ANY government further than I can throw the lot of them together – they always find the worst use for any technology.
If EEG can, contrary to past expectation, be used to monitor complex hand movements, it might also be used to control a prosthetic arm …
I don’t see how this follows at all. One is biodynamic, the other is dead.
Ivan,
Yes that is what I though but it has many dangers. Because of that it is likely that we will develop other methods instead. Should still be possible to give feedback. After all, all of our sensors are outside our brains. More likely to get an interface there than directly into the brain.
James,
A computer reads the signal generated by the brain to move the arms and then the computer instructs the artifical arm to move. Just like a remote control button sends a signal to the TV to tell it to change channels.