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A Car You Can Drive With Your Thoughts
An anonymous reader writes "German researchers have demonstrated a car that can be driven with brain power alone. In the video, a driver wears an EEG head cap, which records brain activity. Software converts the neural signals into steering and acceleration commands, feeding the data into the car's drive-by-wire system. The brain-car interface, which the researchers call the 'BrainDriver,' is far from being commercially viable. But it could one day allow disabled and paralyzed people to gain more mobility. It could also, the researchers say, help people control autonomous vehicles, like a future driverless cab; just by thinking, passengers would tell the cab where to go."
...when the driver spots a totally hot jogger on the sidewalk.
Perfect. Now we just need drivers with brains.
what could go wrong?
BAAAHMMM!!
Family is in the car. Keep your breathing steady. Don't think about the red light district. Don't think about the red light district. For fuck's sake don't think about the red light district. Or that apartment on the other side of town. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. The mall, man, get a grip on yourself. Think about the mall. Just focus on the mall. *bead of sweat*...
I sit in a specially designed cradle, and biological actuators interface with an electromechanical control system, converting my neural signals into steering and acceleration commands. It was difficult to master at first; my thoughts about where the car should go didn't quite translate into reality, but after time and experience the interface becomes transparent. Nowadays on my regular commute I can even think about or sometimes do other (simple) things while driving (depending on road/traffic conditions). People often however disbelieve this...
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
... Facebook
Johnnycab: Please state the street and number.
Douglas Quaid: Drive! drive!
Johnnycab: I'm not familiar with that address. Would you please repeat the destination?
Douglas Quaid: Anywhere just go! Go!
Johnnycab: I'm not familiar with that address. Would you please repeat the destination?
Douglas Quaid: Shit! shit!
Johnnycab: Would you please repeat the destination?
Douglas Quaid: Aaahhh!
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
300+ MPG - http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/volkswagen-world/news/282/volkswagen-unveils-the-xl1-super-efficient-vehicle-in-qatar
250 MPG - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_1-litre_car
88 MPG 5-seater - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Lupo#Lupo_3L
Found the perfect song for you Troll_64 - Try listening to it for a change. "SHUT UP SHUT UP" by black eyed peas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRzMtlZjXpU
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Don't drive angry!
modern studies are showing that overall, people's attention spans are decreasing and their minds are wandering. This fact combined with the fact that many people I encounter these days seem to have half a brain; yep, this sounds like a great idea!
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
To tell the cab where to go. If I'm in a cab its because I'm not capable of driving at the moment.
'This is very important, Mr. Gant, you must think in German. You can't think in English and transpose it. You must think in German. Do you think you can do that, Mr. Gant?'
Road rage is going to fuck this up. What happens when there is no barrier between thought and action?
OK, I'm exaggerating a bit. No, I didn't RTFA.
More music, fewer hits
I read a story a ways back informing me that first armless man to drive a car modified for men without arms dies in a car crash... Does that make sense?
People would be better served by a properly designed and well funded public transit system.
How would someone who is so profoundly handicapped that he cannot move a steering wheel be able to get himself in and out of the car anyway?
... Have the driver drive with his thoughts after several hours of playing GTA3/GTA4. LOL (but not really. not funny haha.). Driving a real car after several hours of agressive and reckless driving in game usually puts your physical actions in conflict with your imagination --- and so with this device your American Psycho might be given actual passage to the real world.
The only way i can see this being good is if its faster than my reflexes. Can it shift before the signal gets from my mind to my arm to shift? Driving is more an instinct than a thought at least in my case. Especially in near crash situations i find that my body "just does" without me having to actually think about the movements.I fear this system will lead to handicapped/disabled drivers driving sluggishly, not being able to pull out of tight spots, and creating more handicapped/disabled drivers.
So most cabs will be ending up at porn shops?
Wow. Another story about driver-less vehicles. Honestly, who believes such ridiculousness will ever exist? One glitch and there goes a sidewalk full of children. Come on... there are too many variables in the real world. This might be great technology for robotic limbs and video games but lets be realistic.
By the way, is it just me or is the moderation system down?
Can't we just have Johnny Cabs instead? Tell the robot where to go, and it'll take you there. It can even have the terrifyingly ugly rubber face on it, just to complete the package.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
...at least 50% of America won't be able to use this car due to lack of brain power.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
... like a future driverless cab; just by thinking, passengers would tell the cab where to go.
In latest news, a widespread outbreak of lice has been linked to new taxi cab caps...
Will the Toyota ones lock on drive and fail to read the brake though?
just by thinking, passengers would tell the cab where to go.
I'm sorry, I'm not putting some nasty EEG cap in a cab on my head just to tell it where to go. Voice recognition for me!
I hope that to steer right you have to think with the right half of your brain, to steer left you have to think with the left, to go forward you have to use both, and the stop you have to shut it off entirely.
Ok, its a right, a left, straight, then we're there. So just think:
sin(*x)*cos(*x)*dx, u=(*x), du/dx=...
Wouldn't it be cool if I had a pet dragon and we could make art together...
Bigfoot reciting the digits in Pi...
MTV! Jersey shore!
And we're here.
The Emotiv Epoch Headset (http://www.emotiv.com/) was rigged to control a wheelchair a few years back with decent success. And as someone who has spent time training with said EEG headset for controls applications (software in my case, but the function is the same) its not as bad as you would at first think.
The technology works on simple pattern recognition, and requires a good bit of training, both for the system and the user. A consumer is certainly not going to be able to drive one off the lot. It's not unlike a voice dictation software; the system needs to learn your particular patterns, and then uses simple "If A, then B" logic to trigger events. So you need to learn to have stable/repeatable patterns for reference.
Well, thats when its trying to detect by pure thought patterns. A much more reliable method is to use the same EEG system to detect specific facial patterns for control (ie blink the left eye to turn left). The aforementioned Emotiv headset can do that right out of the box, with just a few minutes to calibrate thresholds. And since that doesn't have to deal with the interference caused by the different facial ticks, it can be a much more reliable system. Not to mention that its easier to train up a good poker face than it is to control you're whole mindset, especially when spring comes around and all the joggers and sunbathers come out of hiding.
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
Why do you want his attention so much?
I'm sorry I can let you drive to jiff lube how about the dealer?
I'm sorry but mcdonalds is better then BK get out of hear now!
HAL stop beeping at that hot chick. I can I know you like her.
takes on a whole new meaning. If my car acted out half the things I thought I wanted to do with my car, while driving, I would definitely be imprisoned.
Squirrel!
That scares me just thinking about it...
The engine gets over revved, you pop the clutch, and suddenly when airbags get in your face, lose your protective restraint, and backfire... all before sheepishly puttering away.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
The Byrds (or Dylan) would be bad.
To Everything - turn, turn, turn, There is a Season - turn, turn, turn,
Man, I'd be projectile vomiting before the end of the first verse.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Do you need to have the ATA gene to drive the car with your thoughts?
Fight Spammers!
So what happens when someone with ADD drives it?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I really don't want a car that responds to my brain directly. One of the great things about current vehicles is that nodding off at the wheel doesn't mean certain doom when you start dreaming of flying. What about day-dreamers? There's a reason we have bodies, and I think it's because being able to move things with your mind would mean that on an off-day you'd accidentally turn your brain into a pretzel (which I'm fairly certain is an unsupported configuration).
Inanimate objects are wonderfully forgiving.
I mean I want a car I can drive without thinking what so ever. One that doesn't rely on my reaction time to prevent crashes. One that doesn't need my focus to stay on the road. Where's that car?
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
...or you could just tell the future driver-less cab where you want to go. Sort of how today you can tell a cab with a driver where you want to go.
As explained by a scenario involving my mind:
"Alright. Gonna try driving a car with my brain."
"This is kinda neat. I don't even have to do anything."
"Whoa, that's a really cool car over there."
"I wonder what it would be like if I had a car like that."
"How would I even get a car like that car?"
"Maybe if I turn around my financi--"
"OH SHIT!!!"
*Wreck*
Just this morning, I was thinking:
"That guy just cut me off. I should totally sideswipe him and run him off the road... Nah, that would probably land me in jail."
If this takes off, I'd be writing this from my free Internet connection in prison.
Or is it just another facial muscle recognition gizmo that forces you to squint and scrunch your forehead?
In order for the cab to get to the person with out a driver, it must already be autonomous... Why the hell would you then have the person put on a helmet and brain steer when the thing *got* there with out their help?
for that, don't they?
... is it because I have dirty thoughts?
Michael Coyne
http://turthalion.blogspot.com
http://xkcd.com/862/
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
After yesterday's story about an anti-laser, this seems to be an anti-GPS.
Traditional GPS system: The computer is good at taking a start and end point, and finding the most efficient path from one to the other. But, it is poor at precise control actions (steering wheel, accelerator, etc), and poor at making quick decisions in dangerous situations. So, it relies on a human operator to do these tasks. Communication from the computer to the human is the most effective possible: a combination of audio and video.
Anti-GPS system: Humans are week at finding efficient paths through a network of roads, because there is just too much data to consider. Yet, the human is given this task. The computer is poor at precise control tasks, but is assigned to handle it anyway. The communication from the human to the computer is the least effective possible: brain waves generate weak electrical fields outside the cranium which are translated to a language of left and right commands.
Some day, quadriplegics will be able drive cars through brain waves. But, they'll just tell the computer where they want to go, and let the computer handle the routing. There is no reason for the human in such situations to actually control the steering.
Free unix account: freeshell.org
I have one of these. It uses my hands to turn the steering wheel, which turns the joints which actuate the pump which transfers steering momentum to the wheels. As an additional bonus, it uses my feet almost completely independently to operate the pedal which pulls the cable which adjusts the throttle (and alternatively, the brakes).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
This has been done before and broadcast on the BBC (with the same headset):
http://knolleary.net/2010/04/22/how-i-got-onto-prime-time-bbc-one/
You can't control your thoughts.
.. traffic jam on the beltline after 500 cars turned into the parking lot of the new strip club.
Toyota claims it's drivers' fault.
New Development:
Hackers have connected the Jedi Mind Trainer to a Mazda.
This technology is at least three years old!
youtube.com/watch?v=TJJPbpHoPWo
wtf. why don't i get to wear a helmet like that one?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Bad for ADD drivers.
So you also think that the greasy cab cap is not a good idea? I wonder how many drunks can vomit in it before it quits working.
don't know about that, but if cars would follow most drivers thoughts... i can only imagine every good looking babe to finish under the hood
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
It's clear from your post and sig that you are a strong advocate of free speech. Who's the troll here?
In Paulo Alto, Mark Zuckerberg drives YOU!!!!!