That's Using Your Head

broKenfoLd writes "In an earlier post, we looked at the future of Matrix-esque control over computers. In that article, monkeys got to play the games. Today at UW in Madison, WI, it's the humans who are playing video games just by thinking about it. While this is cool for us power gamers, it has many more impressive applications, including limb replacement."

Comments

Serious Gaming

[pseinstein]

When this is refined it can change the way games are played in general. No longer will games be about who has the best hand-eye coordination. Rather they will be about who can think the smartest and fastest. We may end up calling any form of gaming that requires movement or manipulation of physical controls old-school.

yeah... 'replacement'

[BortQ]

Screw limb replacement. I want limb addition!

It's the future...

[igrigorik]

Combine the unsurpassed parallel processing capability of our brain with speed of sequential execution of an even average home pc, and who knows what can happen. This is what you read about in sci-fi, yet it's already on our door steps. (Mind you it's in infant stage, but nonetheless.) Next thing you know faculties of Math/Science/etc. will cease to exist and instead the parents will pick if they want the latest copy of Mathematica or Maple installed in their childs brain ;)

Research on "going the other way"?

[suso]

Does anyone know if any group is doing research on using input devices for your brain from a computer? In other words, a way of sending information back into your brain so that you could know it, hear it, visually see it or feel it?

Children of Zion Can't Jack In

[QuantumG]

The Matrix is cool but here's a the rub. Neo, Trinity, Morpheus and all the rest were born in the matrix. They learnt to control their virtual bodies as they grew up. Even if the machines got it into their silicon minds to hook up one of the children of Zion it would take years for him to learn how to control his virtual body, if he ever did. We are children of Zion, and should we ever get enough electrodes implanted into our brains it will also take us years to learn how to control our virtual bodies.

5.1 Surround Senses

[KrackHouse]

This got me thinking, once you're dealing with the brain directly and not hearing, smell, touch, tase, vision, you could add senses in the same way modders currently add levels or features to games.

I think the best application would be the ability to wire your brain directly into another person's to express ideas without waiting for our mouths to do the work. There is a gob of tissue that connects the left and right sides of the brain that when cut leads to all sorts of weird problems.

If we can borrow the right side of someones brain for an art school assignment then wouldn't humanity start to look a lot like open source software? We own our brains now, they're proprietary. What happens when we connect a bunch together? What happens to "self"? Are we the final Beowulf joke?