Slashdot Mirror
Next X-Prize — $10M For a Brain-Computer Interface
The first X-Prize was about reaching space. Now, reader destinyland writes "This time it's inner space, as Peter Diamandis holds a workshop at MIT discussing a $10 million X-Prize for building a brain-computer interface. This article includes video of Ray Kurzweil's 36-minute presentation, 'Merging the Human Brain with Its Creations,' and MIT synthetic neuroscientist Ed Boyden also made a presentation, followed by discussion groups about Input/Output, Control, Sensory, and Learning. Besides the ability to communicate by thought, the article argues, a Brain-Computer Interface X Prize 'will reward nothing less than a team that provides vision to the blind, new bodies to disabled people, and perhaps even a geographical 'sixth sense' akin to a GPS iPhone app in the brain.'"
It's called my hands on the keyboard.
ok, where's my 10mil
My understanding -- as a complete outsider to the field -- is that a lot of the elements are already there.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Yay for virtual telekinesis, telepathy, auxiliary video in and digital "videographic" memory.
Except that DRM and restrictive Copyright laws will probably cripple it...
What are the exact rules? Some BCI devices have already been made.
Isn't sight for the blind already getting close? (ok, last I heard it was B/W only and the resolution was ridiculously low, but it was still a brain machine interface)
I want a way to communicate with the outside world from within a dream. If you could get lucid dreaming perfected you could get a day's work in while your physical body is resting. Then when you're awake you have the day off. ...of course i'm sure this will just devolve into working during the day and when you're asleep too heh.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
use optoisolators for any sensors attached to the human body.
I have this device with 104 keys on it that, without even speaking or looking at said device, can transmit commands to a computer. It only requires neurological impulses to transmit down to one's fingers causing a force compression on an electric button, which then sends a signal to the computer, which interprets said signal as directed.
It also might not take millions of dollars to do. This could potentially be solved by someone in their garage.
I wonder what the criteria is for winning? Do you have to be able to move something physical? Move a mouse or press a button? According to this wiki article, they've already had some success with the non-humans.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
One aspect to this is programming the mind itself.
To some extent we already do this naturally with our learning and memory forming cognitive capabilities. Simple programs are easily written to our minds.
THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING
YOU ARE NOW BREATHING MANUALLY
It will take time to build a language in which we can program more complex behaviors, but I have no doubt it is possible.
But if we pipe the internet directly into the brain will this make us even more depressed?
My understanding -- as a complete outsider to the field -- is that a lot of the elements are already there.
My understanding -- as an insider in the field -- is that you are correct. I work in the field of visual prosthetics. There are Phase II clinical trials underway for visual prostheses based on retinal stimulation, and a handful of researchers, like myself, who are looking at alternate approaches that include a more direct brain interface. To create a crude machine-brain visual interface, you need: (1) a digital imaging device, like a web cam, (2) a means to translate the image into the neural signal, like a wearable computer, (3) a computer-controlled multi-channel stimulator, like are used for cochlear implants, (4) a brain electrode, like are used to treat Parkinson's disease through Deep Brain Stimulation, or are used on the cortical surface to treat epilepsy. The parts are all there; it's really just a matter of integration, optimization, and getting FDA approval to try it in blind volunteers.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
My understanding is that while brain-to-CPU is now quite advanced, direct feedback is missing.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
'will reward nothing less than a team that provides vision to the blind, new bodies to disabled people, and perhaps even a geographical 'sixth sense' akin to a GPS iPhone app in the brain.'"
FIDO! Here boy! Daddy's got a surprise for you...
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Especially programming the jury's minds to give you the prize. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The article linked is spammy and terrible. For the actual information, see the newsitem on the xprize site or the linked details. Basically, there is no prize yet but they had a workshop to begin working out A. Rules for a prize and B. What is achievable. The actual prize would be announced in about 8-14 months.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
Need some way to know where you are at? There's a map for that!
Seriously, let's just work on getting "brain in a jar" to a functional state, and get the kinks worked out before Apple gets a hold of it and turns it into an iBody.
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
"a GPS iPhone app"
What? This doesn't have anything to do with iPhones
It depends. I've read about a lot of low-bandwidth, one way brain->computer interfaces, and a lot of clever hacks to have sensory-restoring computer->brain interfaces, but if the rules call for a two-way computer-brain interface, that still seems a far way off.
To sell my soul. Cause we all know where they will be using this technique. And it will cost us all a lot. -we don't need no education, we don't need no mind control. It's just another brick in the.... -
I *love* this idea. Neural interfaces are still very much in their infancy with the best commercially available probably being the OCZ NIA and even it is mostly a glitchy gimmick at this point. But the standards they're considering for this X-Prize seem very high. Providing vision to the blind and being able to control virtual bodies both require an understanding of very intricate neural operations that we probably won't see for many years. Sure, there's been devices created that can sort of do these things already but not on levels that can significantly help the disabled. All the more reason that this prize is a good idea since it will hopefully draw interest to the appropriate fields of study. Unfortunately the kind of things that they're talking about will almost certainly require implants. Further advancement in non-implanted interfaces will undoubtedly be much slower so don't assume that you're going to be roaming the hills of Azeroth as if you were actually there any time in the next 20 years. But hey, hopefully I'm wrong.
Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?
That guy has to be running off a ti-83. TRS-80 CoCo at best.
That's a strange name to give a child...
... that need the occasional "Alt+Ctrl+Del" combo.
Have gnu, will travel.
I used to be reluctant about the idea of a brain-computer interface. I wasn't so sure I wanted to become dependent on a computer to function. Then, while I was looking at the 6th work-related wikipedia article of the day (and probably 20th wikpedia article of the day), I realized I was already dependent on a computer to function. Since then, I say, bring it on! Wire the internet directly into my brain.
Yea! Let's hear it for real futuristic technology, and not plebian cellphones!
If you read the article you would have noticed that they require a full feedback loop and in fact full neural communication between a human brain and a computer. The article surmises that this prize will be won in 10-20 years which is reasonable considering that we still do not have the ability to even accurately map active neural networks in the brain let alone communicate with them in real time.
I agree. Especially since most slashdoters already have their DIY lobotomy kits.
Ok, I know the "X-Prize" in general is not without it's risks. But with the Ansari X-Prize, a lot of those dangers could be mitigated before testing. Yes, we can passively monitor the brain for all kinds of great things- memory, motor control, etc. However, it looks like what they want is active input directly -to- the brain from a device. I think they're treading on very dangerous ground here, and "somebody working in their shed" would be a bad person to be feeding electrical current into a live brain... Just my opinion.
So what will we do when people start developing Cyberbrain sclerosis? Who will be liable, will it be the indivdual or group who invents the interface or the one who manufactures it or the neurosurgeon who installed it?
And also will section 9 be involved?
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
The big problem I see is that unlike regular computer interfaces, which have tightly defined specs for physical connectivity, voltage levels, signalling etc, brains tend to be unique, irregular and dynamic, with only very rough maps available of which area has which function.
Unlike TCP/IP, There's no clear distinction between the link, transport and application layers to work with in the brain, they blend together. So it might be possible to implement on an individual level with a ton of work, but I can't see it happening generally.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
I have a small bit of experience in this field (having attended lab meetings for a University group partnered with the lab of Duke's Dr. Miguel Nicolelis).
I frankly have to say that the resolution in non-surgical methods is just not there, and is not promising. Surgical methods, on the other hand, are fairly invasive, and have yet to yield long-term success. And by success, I mean prediction of a single motor event, ie a mouse pushing a lever. Implants tend to degrade in signal quality over time.
Given that we cannot yet accurately predict simple motor events (which should have very easy-to-identify motor cortex manifestations), the idea that we are anywhere near interacting with conscious thought (which we still have no concept of the physical manifestation of which), is wrong. To put it in CS terms: Our data path is lossy and degrades with time. We have no idea what format the data is in, or even the data structures involved. We can tell that there is traffic on the network, but little else.
OK I have to ask, they're beaming it into by brain, What's the Frequency? I'm told it works best on people named Kenneth?
That's my name .
It also might not take millions of dollars to do. This could potentially be solved by someone in their garage.
No, that's just not the case. It will take millions of dollars and lots of equipment and infrastructure. We're not talking about technology, we're talking about biology. There are already hundreds if not thousands of people working on the problem (I'm among them). The limiting factors are not the power of our computers, or the whizziness of our mechanical machines, but the understanding of (a) how we can make permanent high-fidelity implants in the brain that do not pose an undue risk to the health of the patient, (b) what, exactly, the language for communicating through these implants is. While the last 100 years has seen tremendous, fantastic progress in understanding the brain, we are still pretty much in the dark as to the fine details, and it's the fine details that matter for a machine-brain interface. Fortunately, recent technological advances (two photon microscopy coupled with ultra-high resolution 3d tissue reconstruction) are going to give us a huge push toward understanding the details in the next few years.
Like I said, I work in the field. To do a very small -- SMALL -- experiment with only half a dozen volunteers who will have a temporary brain implant for two weeks, the non-recoverable costs are about $500,000. That's just for the hospital stays, the costs of the operating room, and paying support staff and the like, and assumes that the surgeon's time is donated, along with all of the important hardware. Remember, this is actually brain surgery. And yes, I have that cost baked into my budget.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
I agree. Especially since most slashdoters already have their DIY lobotomy kits.
What did you think where all those First Posters and goatse linkers come from?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
If so, I hope they have their checkbook out
Slashdot covered it, so it must be legit!
No sig for you!!
It also might not take millions of dollars to do. This could potentially be solved by someone in their garage.
I'm not sure what this person is envisioning, but it has to be disgusting.
A $10 million prize is absolute peanuts compared to the obvious commercial value of a usable, non-invasive (or at least low-risk) BCI. Just for starters, an effective BCI would largely solve some of the major side effects of a stroke. That right there is a massive, multi-billion dollar market. Another $10 million is not going to substantially stimulate research and development in this area. It's like offering $10 million for a cure for cancer.
Furthermore, this is an invention with applications in dozens of areas. The company or individual that invents it would be swamped with licensing offers.
Compare this to the original X-Prize. There a prize was useful because there was no substantial pre-existing market for the technology being developed and there were relatively few areas of application for the technology. Under those circumstances a prize model makes sense.
But for situations like this one we already have a prize; it's called a patent. Even better, the value of the prize is determined by the market, so there's less of a risk of under or overvaluing the invention.
It will cause a Standalone Complex!
I have a bad feeling about this...
So Carmack has already won, I presume?
...my brain and computer have been using this interface successfully for years. :-)
Where's my money.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It's a thankless job, but somebodies got ta do it! Peelin' off the tissue inch-by-inch, skinnin' off the muscle tooooo. /Repo
I'll take that reward as a direct-deposit, thanks.
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
The possibilities for such an interface are amazing yet I have to say that I really find it distasteful when 'product placement' intervenes in an otherwise fun comment. It casts a pall over the entire comment and denigrates it to marketing-speak.
I'd be very surprised if this technology doesn't already exist.
Richard Dolan speaks here about what he terms the, "Break Away Civilization".
The idea being that black budget technology is so advanced, has been growing of its own accord for so long, and is so impossible to reveal given its nature, the result is that people working within its structure are essentially no longer dealing with the same reality as the rest of us. The slaves get sticks and fire while the master of the house gets to use the current technology. The only difference here being that the slaves don't even get to see the technology made possible by their sweat and bondage.
-FL
THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING
YOU ARE NOW BREATHING MANUALLY
Oh no! Now what do I do? How do I know that once I stop thinking about breathing that it will continue? Oh, cruel Fate! Must not get distracted...
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
Does that count?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Oh, come on, this will only attract any new talent if it is completely free of a clue, and clueless won't solve this one. Having that would be worth so much more than any X prize could ever pay that you'd be much better off keeping it a secret outside of some government buyers -- or just selling it.
This is like awarding 10 million for a workable, portable, reliable free energy source, fusion in your pocket. Who would be stupid enough to apply for that prize if they had that? Doh! Yeah, sure, I need a couple mil now, you take the trillions this is worth and take care of all that for me, right?
Double your IQ or no money back, duh, sounds like a good deal to anyone who'd take this one on.
And yes, I know more than a little about the topic. As a published expert on DSP, nerve impulse driven prosthetic arms and legs were simply hard to do -- vision, thoughts? Come now. And who would volunteer for a test and what government would allow such testing even if someone was half close? Could you try this on a monkey and know if it was worth trying on a human?
Dream on, guys.
Yes, one of my alumni did go ahead and do functional MRI brain scans in real time....simple by comparison.
While I grant that some vision restoration experiments are promising, the rest of what they are talking about is not at all within our grasp. The only reason vision (and for that matter auditory) implants are successful is because the person already has a functioning nerve group for input and the brain systems developed through prior use. In cases where people have been without vision for too long, or where there has been damage/degeneration of the neural pathway, such techniques have had little positive effect.
When you start talking about the "replacement body", this may have similar nerve bundles pre-existing if the injury is outside the brain and occurred in the recent past. I will yield there is fair promise in the programs in which they re-map nerves to enervate existing muscle and then use sensors to detect muscle twitches, but there are no great methods of establishing direct signaling from nerve to machine yet.
None of the above are brain machine interfaces, at least not in the direct sense. Direct BMIs (not relying on existing nerves for IO) have so far not been able to do much of anything in real time.
And the GPS "feature" is likely many decades away. And would probably require claiming some significant portion of the brain already in use. A compass would probably be implementable in the near future (10+ years), if we can find some long-lasting solution to encourage nerve-diode interfacing.
/.
For a commercial takeoff, we need to expand beyond quadruplegic patients and the locked-in. Always loved the idea, but let's be honest -- if typing is faster, typing will still win. And that's just output. For input, I don't think competing with something high-speed like vision is all that important. Just a BCI that would allow for IM rates might as well be freakin' telepathy.
My understanding -- as an insider in the field -- is that you are correct. I work in the field of visual prosthetics. There are Phase II clinical trials underway for visual prostheses based on retinal stimulation, and a handful of researchers, like myself, who are looking at alternate approaches that include a more direct brain interface.
Then what are you doing posting on slashdot!?! There's 10 million at stake! If you're really so close, get back in the lab and make yourself a multi-millionaire!
The elements are not really "there," unfortunately, as this demands electrode implants, which are a long ways off from being reliable/safe. As an electrical engineer who built electrode devices to read muscle commands, I can also tell you with confidence that invasive methods are the only possibility, as noninvasive brain/nerve scans are simply too weak to make confident guesses on what you're thinking. 95% is the absolute best I've ever seen for non-invasive in very unrealistic settings (thinking of a single word or looking at a particular picture for tens of seconds), and while 95% sounds great, it means it would do the wrong thing for you in 1 out of 20 commands. Granted, there is a lot of work on invasives, but most engineers won't touch it with a 100 foot pole, as invading a person's skull = FDA regulation until you drown. Because of this, progress is glacial instead of the frantic pace of innovation people are used to in the electronics industry. If you get your technology wrong in even a very subtle way, the class action lawsuit you face from incapacitated customers will dwarf the $10 million prize.
AccountKiller
Yeah; for example: does banging your head on the keyboard count?
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
US$ 500k? You've got to outsource that ASAP!
I don't have a sig.
My understanding is very little has changed in the last 10 years. Slashdot keeps posting on supposed BCI progress but it just seems more of what has been available beforehand is making the headlines.
The problem seems almost like asking for true AI but people are so board of hearing it for 60 years, something different has been set.
I work in an optical imaging lab doing whole animal and human brain imaging studies. As you've mentioned two key points should be stressed for those outside the field.
(1) The project is laughably underfunded. Think more on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars plus for these types of projects to make it through the full FDA approval process. Human trials are phenomenally expensive, to the point where whole established companies can be driven to bankruptcy through the process (ART in Canada comes to mind).
(2) Many of the smaller pieces HAVE already been invented. By many different groups scattered around the globe. It will take some sort of insane IP wizardry to combine all of these patents along with the additional research required to meet the specific aims of the challenge.
Sounds like they expect quite a bit for a paltry 10 million in prize money. Anyone that develops any one of those will probably go public and pocket a hundred times that much.
Floating in the black seas of infinity without a paddle.
I suppose this might fit in with your (a) but...
I read a BCI panel report put together by Theodore Berger some 3 years ago and the one thing I took away from the report was that the problem with BCI right now (for invasive implants) isn't the matter of "Where to put the implant" and "How to communicate," but a problem with keeping it permanently there. I hadn't realized prior to reading that report that the body was actually the number one "enemy" in any kind of long term study involving invasive implants. At the time that panel report was published (2007), the longest running implant had been just about a year. There were still a lot of open questions as well as to what was causing the implants to eventually fail.
Unless the implant tech has improved in the last 3 three years; it seems to me the biggest hurdle will be getting implants that can last longer than a year.
The web browser was obviously just a spinoff technology!
My keyboard and mouse already provide a brain-computer interface.
What!? Not the same thing, you say?
I beg to differ. All of the current technologies that might be used for this purpose are just fancy keyboards using some other kind of sensing technology rather than hall-effect switches. The systems don't understand what you're thinking they just interpret the activation of certain neuron groups as on-off switches. You can train your brain to trigger these neuron groups in pretty much the same way you can train your brain to move your fingers over a keyboard.
To think that the current brain-interfaces anywhere approach the holy grail of brain-computer interfaces that most people have in mind completely misunderstands the problem.
not with your daughter it isn't. Now we know why you call her fido.
Direct mind-computer interfaces always makes me think of this classic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Planet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k97JZHTCVbM
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
As a proud owner of a Kurzeill K2600xs keyboard, I know that his biggest weakness is making interfaces, because the one his (otherwise wonderful) keyboards suck. In fact, they even suck on his subsequent keyboards. He's a brilliant guy, but he just can't make a good interface. I shudder to think what his brain interface would be like.
sounds like a bargain.
Seriously. The X-Prize guys are pretending to be Rossum.
Or do the "thought controllers" currently on the market count?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING
YOU ARE NOW BREATHING MANUALLY
You are also aware of your blinking and your tongue. Have fun.
Think of the possibilities! You could re-watch your favorite anime minus the filler episodes, then watch them after and you'll think of them as bonus content! You could re-watch the Matrix without the sequels! You could write a short summary of the Lost storyline on the back of a napkin, print out some pics of Kate, then delete your entire memory of the series and take in the good bits ALL AT ONCE!
Oh! Oh! You could re-watch Star Wars with the prequels first, so that when you see episodes 4-6 you'll be like FUCK YEAH NOW IT'S GETTIN' GOOD!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I also worked in the field for close to a decade and reviewed grants for the NIH in the BCI arena. The NIH has spent well in excess of $10M for brain-computer interfaces, Cyberkinetics blew almost $60M for their BCI. The problem is not signal processing or electronics - it is materials. Look up the names Dobelle, Brindley, Phurtscheller, Donoghue, Normann for brain implants. Until we find a material that the brain likes and is stable under decades of voltage bias, this is a monstrous waste of money. Your budget is half-baked at best. Our NIH program grant proposals were in the $5M range for just a couple of volunteers and only 6 months of direct experimentation. You cannot do anything in this field for $500k except Mickey Mouse experiments suitable for NOVA TV specials. The real, hard engineering and science are going to take a LONG time and a LOT of money. Send the $10M to Haiti.
i could be wrong but i think the hardware end is already done, look up the neurophone. again i could be wrong but the holographic view of the brain isn't that neurons simply fire but that there are channels at different frequencies , sound, visual, sleep-mode(for alpha-theta something like 1-20 Hz i think)), and various other channels, these frequencies hit all the neurons at once and if a particular neuron has something relevant it can respond. only software modeling is needed at this point to interpret the waves, and there was a /. article not long ago where they were doing just that (showing cards, or having people think about words while a computer listened)
Pfft; if someone solves this, ten million will be pocket change.
Regards;
Microsoft Already patented it!
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6609
United States Patent Application 20070185697
Kind Code A1
Tan; Desney S. ; et al. August 9, 2007
Using electroencephalograph signals for task classification and activity recognition
Abstract
A method for classifying brain states in electroencephalograph (EEG) signals comprising building a classifier model and classifying brain states using the classifier model is described. Brain states are determined. Labeled EEG data is collected and divided into overlapping time windows. The time dimension is removed from each time window. Features are generated by computing the base features; combining the base features to form a larger feature set; pruning the large feature set; and further pruning the feature set for a particular machine learning technique. Brain states in unlabeled EEG data are classified using the classifier model by dividing the unlabeled EEG data into overlapping time windows and removing the time dimension from each time window. Features required by the classifier model are generated. Artifacts in the labeled and unlabeled EEG data comprise cognitive artifacts and non-cognitive artifacts.
love the taste, hate the texture
My understanding is that to win the prize, you don't have to be able to interpret every thought that comes out of the brain, you can get away with thoughts directed at the device. We already have video game controllers that can do this, although they are very crude (they don't take dictation or anything). Picking up thoughts consciously directed towards a device is a lot easier than trying to pick up whatever randomly is going on in the mind.
Communication from device to nerves is different than communication from nerves to device; so as another guy mentioned, we are already pretty close on the artificial vision. There have also been prosthetic arms that already connect directly to the nervous system. This is all very different than interpreting everything that goes on inside the brain.
It is also not likely to lead to a Matrix style data-dump into the brain. For the brain to learn new things, it needs to reorganize itself physically, grow new connections between brain cells, and even grow new brain cells. All this growing takes time, energy, and nutrients, (and probably sleep), so if you want to do a data-dump, you are going to have to know more than just how to communicate with the brain, you're going to have to know how to re-organize and build it. That knowledge is a lot farther off.
Qxe4
I can only give you this insight to the two problems you have mentioned:
You don't. Implants in the sense of something that's stuck inside of brain matter are a horrid idea; a Matrix-esque port is the only way to go on that (though the placement will likely vary).
There's not one, per se. The brain is a magnificently flexible system. The question of what is the most efficiently assimilated protocol/language is one that will take likely a hundred years to work out, but you don't need to get there. For a basic system of interaction almost any will work. The simpler the better for starting out, but given new input the brain will immediately begin assimilating it and understanding it.
For that reason it's almost preferable not to delve into brain ports at this time and stick strictly to peripheral nerve inputs. If I were in charge my preferred site would be the ocular nerve for its relative availability and the number of potential volunteers for trials.
The notions that, first, an implant should actually go in or beside the brain, and, second, that there is a specific language needed, both seem to misunderstand the capabilities of the brain.
Sent from my hand-wired (literally!) nerve-computer interface.
Like I said, I work in the field. To do a very small -- SMALL -- experiment with only half a dozen volunteers who will have a temporary brain implant for two weeks, the non-recoverable costs are about $500,000.
Clearly you should offshore this to China or India.
Deleted
Okay, so it won't be solved by someone in their garage safely or legally, but what else is new?
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
So this new class of people that inherit these super skills (e.g., 6th sense, 65" vertical jump, cheetah speed, etc.), will they dominate sports or will they even be allowed to play? Sounds like a new batch of recruits for the ACLU. Can't wait to see amputee Grandma who once had inoperable cataracts slam dunkin over the top of Kobe.
new bodies to disabled people
You will be upgraded.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I think you can and should offer less. Maybe a million dollars.
I don't know who writes those little dept. tags on the summaries but this one is absolute comic genius.
Bravo!
as a certified check payble to:
Kilgore Trout
Astrakhan,
Province of Astrakhan
Russian Federation
My winning entry is:
My fingers are my Brain-Computer Interface because you
need a keyboard to enter commands into the 'Puter.
Thanks For Your Money.
Yours In Astrakhan,
Kilgore Trout
P.S.: Waterboard Tony Blair !!!!
THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING
YOU ARE NOW BREATHING MANUALLY
Oh no! Now what do I do? How do I know that once I stop thinking about breathing that it will continue? Oh, cruel Fate! Must not get distracted...
This is much deeper that that -- while you are asleep, your life is in God's hands. It is up to HER whether to bring you back in the morning or take your life away from you.
So, you are on manual control every night.
Never forget that!
The first thing I thought of was OCZ's Neural Impulse Actuator...then I read the part about "restoring vision to the blind".
Sent from my iPhone 5
I wanted to be like my boss. I figured that all I needed was a book of Kennedy quotes and a lobotomy.
you think that what you are breathing Is air?
Geez do I have to do all the work around here !
humanbrain@body:/#e2fsck -fpC 0 /dev/brain
This package Does Not Contain a Winner
That's a no-brainer: with a brain implant, everyone is a volunteer.
Just sell the implants with a 1 Year Warranty and I don't see the problem?
and I'm sure many of you will. But wasn't this already accomplished, at least at a basic, rudimentary level with Braingate? And that was seven years ago, I would have thought that there would been much more improvement on their system by now.
http://www.braingate.com/
Could you do it for less if you relocated everybody and all the machines long term to India?
I see people mentioning the OCZ NIA, but no mention of the Emotiv EPOC? wireless 14 channel eeg for 300 bucks!
Surrogates! Surrogates! Surrogates!
FIDO! Here boy! Daddy's got a surprise for you...
So that's how FidoNet will come back?
"You are only young once, but you can be immature forever." -www.animemusicvideos.org
I will pay $100,000,000 for a device that does this, and allows things like curing of blindness. The only catch is that I require a measly 20% of the global net profit, and I will only pay the 'reward' once the technology has been 'proven' on the open market for two years.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Suppose we have a interface, just a connector, nothing more, nothing less. Can't we just connect a memory chip or some artificial network whatever and see how the brain cope with those? (ignoring whether there's such a connector or not. oh and any ethical problem put aside also)
The best interface setup i've seem is in the field of Optogenetics. It requires a single cut into the skull, and not even all the way through the skull (just light goes inside) so the risks are greatly lowered. Mind you this involves infecting the patient with a virus to mess with their DNA (totally minor haha...) and it is computer to human communication only. I suppose I'd use it in conjunction with an EEG headset for output (they didnt say how precise it had to be >.>...). So the project seems DOABLE. And these contests aren't really meant to be profitable, just encouragement.
Your post was exceptionally good at putting MY breathing into manual just by reading it. Now I've got to wait until it goes back to auto before I feel normal again.
Liberty.
All hail our future overlords!
Let's hope we have a few hot machine-made-flesh cylons to serve
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
BRRRAAIIIIINNNNSS!
How did it go?
We could have a chair in Antarctica, with a brain attachment, where we could simply use our brain waves to activate and operate
under possible invasion from a distant alien life form???
What's interesting about your programming example is: deep breathing is helpful in many regards, and requires conscious control. (It's useful for meditation, helping you get to sleep, calming you down from a fight-or-flight response in the workplace where either of those responses are not helpful, and energy healing.) Otherwise, we tend to sigh once every hundred breaths or so (an unconscious deep breath).
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Well the brain to computer interface is one thing but what I do with all those zombies that have left over from my testing of computer to brain interface? I am sure they could be used in some military applications. They seem kind of hostile, in fact I have trouble from keeping them from invading my house. I run my router and pc on my UPS battery because the power is down for some mysterious reason. Please help!
The parts are all there; it's really just a matter of integration, optimization, and getting FDA approval to try it in blind volunteers.
Yeah, I'll bet that last bit is hard. I've heard that it's routine for the FDA to approve double-blind studies, but I don't think that would be statistically significant in your case.
while you are asleep, your life is in God's hands. It is up to HER whether to bring you back in the morning or take your life away from you.
Discordians are so funny sometimes...
No comments, and no moderations. I'm guessing your net worth is below $50,000 as well.
You have posted something that has been posted before, repeatedly. You have no moderations or replies, though. I think you may have seen the repeated posts. I also think you are worth less than $54321.