Controlling Computers With the Brain

Killam0n takes note of a story in CNN Money on progress in controlling computers via brainwaves. From an aspirin-sized implant a quadriplegic is now using to play computer games, the article extrapolates out to a near future in which we will all be wearing headband computers and IM'ing one another as if telepathically. "Two years ago, a quadriplegic man started playing video games using his brain as a controller. That may just sound like fun and games for the unfortunate, but really, it spells the beginning of a radical change in how we interact with computers — and business will never be the same. Someday, keyboards and computer mice will be remembered only as medieval-style torture devices for the wrists. All work — emails, spreadsheets, and Google searches — will be performed by mind control."

Comments

Could we come up with articles a little older?

[smithbp]

This article is date July 24, 2006...I might be wrong, but this would make it a bit outdated and probably not worthy of being on the frontpage of /.

Because someone has to say it....

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

"You mean you have to use you hands? That's like a baby's toy!"

Dream bigger

[Metasquares]

This is called BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) technology, and it's a fairly hot topic in HCI these days. I think people are dreaming too low-level, though: there are some things, like composing music, that are far easier to do mentally than physically. These are the things people should be getting excited about (after we perfect curing the disabled with it), not moving mice across the screen and telepathically IMing people, both of which have reasonably natural interfaces already.

The next craze for new parents

[G4from128k]

Given the amazing plasticity of the young brain, the time to do this is when the kid is really really young. Ideally, a child might most effectively learn to mentally control a cursor/computer interface about the same time they learn to control their fingers and toes. At that age it really will make controlling a computer as effortless as walking or talking.

The time will come when children that didn't get "Baby's First Brain Mouse" in their first few months of life will be at a scholastic disadvantage to those that did.

no, you fools, wrong Russia joke!

[jollyreaper]

"The only drawback with these computers is you have to think in Russian." See? Much funnier reference. :)

And on-topic, there's some totally amazing shit going down in cybernetics these days.

http://www.sigmorobot.com/technology/news/toast_bi onic_man.htm

This guy here has thought-controlled limbs. The nerves that controlled his arms have been rewired into muscles in his pecs and the arm reads the twitches there and turns that into motion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5140090.stm

Limbs can now be attached directly to the skeleton.

Artificial muscles (sorry btech fans, they aren't called myomar)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4817848.stm

Advanced bionic hand

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4225896.stm

Article featuring Claudia Mitchell as well as Jesse Sullivan, both real-life cyborgs

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,2 0457094-8362,00.html

We're really making some fantastic advances in this field. The major future hurtles will be better feedback from the limb, getting it to run on blood glucose so a separate power supply is not needed, and making the whole affair less bulky and more natural. The ideal goal here would be a limb that would pass for perfectly natural, both for the observer and the amputee.