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Translating Brain Waves Into Words
cortex writes with an excerpt from the L.A. Times: "In a first step toward helping severely paralyzed people communicate more easily, Utah researchers have shown that it is possible to translate recorded brain waves into words, using a grid of electrodes placed directly on the brain. ... The device could benefit people who have been paralyzed by stroke, Lou Gehrig's disease or trauma and are 'locked in' — aware but unable to communicate except, perhaps, by blinking an eyelid or arduously moving a cursor to pick out letters or words from a list. ... Some researchers have been attempting to 'read' speech centers in the brain using electrodes placed on the scalp. But such electrodes 'are so far away from the electrical activity that it gets blurred out,' [University of Utah bioengineer Bradley] Greger said. ... He and his colleagues instead use arrays of tiny microelectrodes that are placed in contact with the brain, but not implanted. In the current study, they used two arrays, each with 16 microelectrodes."
P300 is typically 300ms (thus the name), and the technique I was referring to uses two responses to generate a match (it flashes rows and columns so you need an X and Y response). 600ms or thereabouts is thus the time to beat. It's not lightning fast - nothing like typing - but a whole hell of a lot better than the reference methods that they're referring to. They're solving a brain-computer interface problem that was solved 10 years ago, and that was made irrelevant several years ago when cheap neural interfaces started hitting the commercial commodity market.
Of course this is all relying on TFA, which could be completely misrepresenting their research given the general high quality of modern science journalism.
Also, earlier kidding aside, the article is probably completely missing the point. It is likely that the actual purpose of the research is NOT to develop the current prototype's functionality. It is more likely that it is exploring the ability to take, reduce, and analyze data of this type. The fact that you can build (buy off-the-shelf for peanuts) a BCI whose functionality is equal to or greater than their prototype using less invasive methods is probably completely beside the point.
is when you read their words, and they just say "kill me"
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
To translate your query into a more IT-intelligible analogue, can you build a model of the internet by posting random things to Slashdot and then watching Google Trends?
This + cellphone technology + in-ear speaker = telepathy
Score:-1, Funny