Think And Click

cecil36 writes: "Yahoo! has reported that scientists have discovered neural technology that allowed a monkey to control a mouse cursor using the brain. ... Further reading states that this technology can be used with the paralyzed or those with Lou Gehrig's Disease to allow them to use their computers."

Comments

Good training

[esw]

"Going one step further, her team then trained the monkey to simply think about a movement, without reaching out and touching the screen."

So how exactly do you train a monkey to think about doing something without doing it? I'm quite surprised that they were able to do that with the current level of communication between primates and humans.

~Eric

Telepahy

[Catskul]

Two people with these things and radio tramsmitters could potentialy communicate "telepathicly". Awesome.

Article is very vague

[RobPiano]

The article doesn't have much detail on the actual transmition of the signal. Well other than the fact that I would hesistate to stick anything in my head these days, I wonder how precise an activity like this is. Signal could be effected by other signals in the area. Like how hearing implants can be effected by cellphones.

Oh well still seems cool.

Maybe a better application of this would be for 3D apps in the future. 3D Mice suck.

Word.

take away the mouse

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 1: Condition monkey to point mouse cursor at picture of food, to receive food reward.

Step 2: Record neural signature before and during actions of Step 1.

Step 3: Remove mouse from monkey.

Step 4: Show picture of food along with picture of mouse cursor, at a random relative angle.

Step 5: Reward monkey if and only if detecting neural signature of monkey making correct mouse vector movement.

Step 6: Repeat steps 4 and 5.

Step 7: Publish statistics.

Frankly, I won't be satisfied until they wire the monkey's brain to the Universal Translator

Re:Good training - wrong question

[Havokmon]

"Going one step further, her team then trained the monkey to simply think about a movement, without reaching out and touching the screen."

So how exactly do you train a monkey to think about doing something without doing it?

I would ask why they even wasted their time training a monkey to *think* about moving a mouse. Just give him the mouse, and disconnect the damn thing.

THEN, if successful, maybe go to that step.. but since we don't need paralyzed monkey's moving mice, I would recommend doing something a little more useful.