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Brain/Machine Interfaces Approaching Usefulness
Gary writes with a link to a Wired article about a brain-machine interface that may eventually have practical purposes. Though right now it simply allows a user to move a train on a track by performing math in their head, someday it may result in more serious applications. "Honda, whose interface monitors the brain with an MRI machine like those used in hospitals, is keen to apply the interface to intelligent, next-generation automobiles. The technology could one day replace remote controls and keyboards and perhaps help disabled people operate electric wheelchairs, beds or artificial limbs. Initial uses would be helping people with paralyzing diseases communicate even after they have lost all control of their muscles. Since 2005, Hitachi has sold a device based on optical topography that monitors brain activity in paralyzed patients so they can answer simple questions - for example, by doing mental calculations to indicate 'yes' or thinking of nothing in particular to indicate 'no.'"
I'm looking forward to being able to write simply by thinking, typing slows me down soooo much.
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I can't wait till I can buy one of these things. I figure with practice, you can increase the precision of your thought and thus the number of signals you can give. Conceivably, you'd be able to enter text as quickly as you can think it.
Would increasing the use of your brain like this, to give commands, make you smarter in some way, as well?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
My boss and I were just talking human-machine interfaces yesterday. He was relating to me how he had purchased some stock in a company that specializes in human-machine interface R&D. I wondered how they managed to map brain waves (or thoughts?) to instructions.
Scientist: "Ok now to turn left just start thinking about any kind of cheese."
*Patient starts spinning madly in a circle*
Scientist: "HEY! You're thinking about my WIFE you bastard!"
How do we know a paralysed guy wants this thing telling us what he's thinking. For all we know, he's probably having a good time watching all these people asking him to blink for yes and blink twice for no. And now you make him do freaking math! How the hell does he get the damn thing off? I mean, nobody's gonna ask him if he wants to use it. And if he wants screaming No No No in his head, he'd just have to think of nothing over and over again?
We need privacy laws for the damn device!
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
This will have similar limits to systems based on EEG and MEG, although it has somewhat worse spatial resolution than either of those.
A principle limitation in brain-machine interfaces can be summed up by noting whether the current incarnation can provide more information that a monitor of a person's eye movements (a few bits per second).
This one will certainly fail that test, and fundamental limitations exist that will prevent its improvement, and those are based on the spatial and temporal resolution available by transcranial optical topography (or near-infrared as the case may be).
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
I'd love to be able to adjust the AC and control the radio without taking my eyes off the road or my hands off the wheel.
is what happens when you think something that you don't want to actually carry out? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who has random thoughts that enter their mind and then you dismiss and don't actually do anything with. How can you tell between idle thoughts and thoughts that are supposed to bring about actions?
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
What if you have very poor math skills; does the toy train derail?
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
The biggest boost to these brain/machine interfaces will come when we can pipe feedback directly from the machine into the brain (or any neural input). The brain works as a feedback manager. Without feedback, the brain doesn't learn to change its output. With crude feedback, the lessons are learned crudely. Visual or any other feedback through a sense organ is crude, losing in translation from machine to organ and then organ to brain.
Neural input is harder than neural output (eg. through MRI monitoring). But even a little direct neural input will be used by the brain to vastly improve the brain's control of the machines.
--
make install -not war
n/t
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Will this fix the very common keyboard to chair interface errors that so many of my customers suffer from?
UTF-8: There and Back Again
The advanced alien race created a machine that would do whatever they wanted, just by thinking about it, and, well, they destroyed each other!
You start building these machines, and the next thing you know, armies of robots tasked to do our bidding will wind up ripping the clothes off the most attractive people. Fortunately, our arms race of fat has prepared us for this.
Time to crack open a bag of Cheetos, before it is too late!
This is my sig.
A train of thought.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
The real impact will be on weapons systems. If this is really looking like it is there, then ALL major militaries will be spending LOADS of dollars on researching this (as well as try to steal it from those that have it). America (and the west) will have directed energy weapons very shortly. If we also have the ability to turn it on via thought, than we have the ability to fire 100x faster than a regular pilot who is pulling a trigger that will release a bullet, a missle, or a bomb.
Of course, the military will keep that very quiet until the next war.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The oblig Back to the Future reference: "You mean you have to use your hands? That's a baby's toy."
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
My first thought was "I bet that's what it'd be like to run Vista on a fembot..."
This is nothing new. People have been controlling computers with their brain for over a decade. Let me know when the computer can directly put information inside the brain. That is the *real* advance we need.
Also. WTF? The person does math and the computer moves a train? That is totally backwards from the way it should be.
I think that we will see remote controls on planes, but bombers will probably fly with several extra "pilots" whose jobs are to control the small remote control fighters that surround the craft (think navy carrier group). The problem is that the time distance is TOO far if the pilot is on the ground. But in addition, some of the fighters will remain staffed by humans. Much quicker to respond and easier to see everything. But that will change on our next real war. At that time, I expect to see America suffer major losses, and at that time, the small inexpensive remote control aircrafts will win over.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.