Slashdot Mirror
Computer Control, by Bug and by Brain
electric_mongoose writes "NewScientistTech has a fascinating story about a paralysed man who can control a computer and robot arm using electrodes implanted in his brain. The electrodes measure neural signals generated when he concentrates on trying to move one of his paralysed limbs and software translates these imagined gestures into the movement of an on-screen cursor or a robotic arm. Other researchers have also revealed a way to dramatically boost the efficiency of similar brain implants in monkeys."
If you don't have a handy human brain to play with, 9x320 writes points to a report on LiveScience of Wim van Eck's graduation project: a computer game similar to Pac-Man controlled, not by conventional computer code, but by the brain of an insect. From the article:"Instead of computer code, I wanted to have animals controlling the ghosts. To enable this, I built a real maze for the animals to walk around in, with its proportions and layout matching the maze of the computer game. The position of the animals in the maze is detected using colour-tracking via a camera, and linked to the ghosts in the game. This way, the real animals are directly controlling the virtual ghosts."
We have already seen this in Professor Kevin Warwick
I'm not fat, just big boned...
The Nature paper about the guy who can open email, control an arm, etc. just by thinking is available as a free pdf here. Or just the abstract.
I don't have any links or otherwise to show as proof, but I worked on something related to this almost 8 years ago. I was doing my undergrad senior project at Georgia Tech and was following up on previous research done in the same program.
We were working with a quadraplegic who had implants that also measured brainwave activity and crudely mapped them to mouse movements - one "thought" was for X-axis, and another was for Y-axis. I say "crude" because, IIRC, the cursor could only go one way, and when it got to the edge of the window, it just kept wrapping around.
My particular project was helping enable him to speak, using icons that he could choose to string together enough words and phrases to talk.
I would have hoped that it would have progressed from that point in 8 years...
A better link to this project can be found at http://mediatechnology.liacs.nl/htmlIndex.html. Go to 'projects', then 'all projects by year', then 'Animal Controlled Computer Games'. Looks like this project was done back in 2004 - not exactly recent news.
Is this the same Wim van Eck that's known for van Eck phreaking; i.e. using radiation from a CRT to replicate what's being displayed on said CRT?
s id9_gci550525,00.html
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,289893,
"This term combines the name of Wim van Eck, who in 1985 authored an academic paper that described this form of electronic eavesdropping, with the term phreaking, the earlier practice of using special equipment to make phone calls without paying. Van Eck phreaking is identified in the U.S. government project known as Tempest and, although some information remains classified, has probably been used to spy on suspected criminals and in espionage."
This
The story about a paralyzed man (Matthew Nagle) controling a computer with his brain is definitely not new. There was a very good story in Wired in March 2005, and much more recently, a piece on NPR's The Infinite Mind. According to the piece, Matthew has since had the implant removed, since the trial has ended. I believe at least one other trial is in progress.
As for bugs controlling stuff with their mind, here's a sciencenews article from 2000 about a lamprey (not actually a bug I guess) steering a computer-controlled robot for no good reason. I saw the original paper in Artificial Life at some point, and it was easily the most ridiculous scientific journal article I've ever seen.
How do they do to make critters chase PacMan? Or they just don't and wonder around in the maze?
The ghosts have never chased PacMan around the maze, even though it seems an awful lot like they are when you find yourself in their paths.
Ghost movement patterns are predetermined and unrelated to the player's actions, as anyone who's looked at the slipcover inside Buckner and Garcia's "Pac Man Fever" LP could tell you.
According to the project page he did it in this way:
When the crickets should chase Pac-Man, I switch on the motors furthest away from his location in the maze, so the crickets will flee in his direction.