Samsung Researching How To Let You Control Your Phone With Your Brain

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Samsung Researching How To Let You Control Your Phone With Your Brain

Posted by samzenpus on Monday April 22, 2013 @07:44AM from the look-ma-no-hands dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Samsung is testing a way to control your mobile device with your brainwaves. If that project succeeds, it would truly be a case of science fiction brought to real life. According to MIT Technology Review, Samsung's Emerging Technology Lab is collaborating with Roozbeh Jafari, assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas, Dallas, on the early-stage research. That research involves placing a cap 'studded with EEG-monitoring electrodes' atop the head of a convenient subject, who then concentrates on an onscreen icon blinking at a particular rate. Concentrate hard enough, and the subject can launch and interact with applications. However, Samsung also indicated that mind-controlled mobile devices are quite a ways off, if they ever appear in a market-ready form at all. 'Several years ago, a small keypad was the only input modality to control the phone, but nowadays the user can use voice, touch, gesture, and eye movement to control and interact with mobile devices,' Insoo Kim, Samsung's lead researcher, told the Review. 'Adding more input modalities will provide us with more convenient and richer ways of interacting with mobile devices.' In any case, it's a crazy concept, the sort of thing Philip K. Dick might have written up as a short story; but it's one evidently grounded in reality."

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I do that already... by Kenja · 2013-04-22 07:46 · Score: 5, Funny

Using the amazing "fingers" brain interface device.

--

"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
1. Re:I do that already... by Mitreya · 2013-04-22 07:54 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Using the amazing "fingers" brain interface device.
  Why don't they put their heads together and get the voice-activated commands working properly. I have not yet been able to get my new Android phone to follow any of my voice commands. It does something, but never what I ask for
  Every time I see this "brain waive interface" promise, I wonder who's going to fix the voice-activated commands... Not as exciting, but perhaps more achievable (in short term).
2. Re:I do that already... by ArcadeMan · 2013-04-22 07:58 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  brain waive interface
  waive /wv/
  Verb
  Refrain from insisting on or using (a right or claim): "waive all rights to the money".
  Refrain from applying or enforcing (a rule, restriction, or fee): "her tuition fees would be waived".
  Synonyms
  relinquish - renounce - abdicate - give up - forgo
  So, a brain waive interface would be a television.
  
  --
  Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
3. Re:I do that already... by Dahamma · 2013-04-22 08:17 · Score: 2
  
  Actually, I think that interface does exist on phones, as well. I see lots of people using it in their car when they talk and text while swerving randomly between lanes on the highway every day.
4. Re:I do that already... by h4rr4r · 2013-04-22 08:18 · Score: 2
  
  Voice is a clumsy interface between humans, I am not sure why I would ever want to have to deal with that hassle with a machine.
5. Re:I do that already... by Seumas · 2013-04-22 08:24 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Interesting, because most people I have encountered who are particularly pre-occupied with their phone don't seem to actually possess a brain, to begin with.
6. Re:I do that already... by interkin3tic · 2013-04-22 08:37 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Or penis.
  
  Dick might have written up as a short story; but it's one evidently grounded in reality.
And by no-body · 2013-04-22 07:48 · Score: 2

The other way....
It's been done by Emotiv by BurningTyger · 2013-04-22 07:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's been done by Emotiv http://www.emotiv.com/ back in 2007, and various other companies. What is new here?
Feels like another attempt by Samsung to do viral marketing just by associating itself to something hip.
1. Re:It's been done by Emotiv by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-22 08:17 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Yeah. I used Emotiv's products (and others) during a research I performed for my MSc on gaming with brain-computer interfaces. The placing of electrodes is annoying as heck, hard to do right as a novice and the results are poor.
  If they can solve this, more power to them. But I don't think they'll be able to do that just yet.
2. Re:It's been done by Emotiv by anagama · 2013-04-22 09:00 · Score: 2
  
  You could get a phantoscopic system planted directly on your retinas...You could even get telaesthetics patched into your spinal column at key vertebrae. But this was said to have its drawbacks: some concern about long term nerve damage, plus it was rumored that hackers for big media companies had figured out a way to get through the defenses that were built into such systems, and run junk advertisements in your peripheral vision (or even spang in the fucking middle) all the time -- even when your eyes were closed. Bud knew a guy like that who'd somehow gotten infected with a meme that ran advertisements for roach motels, in Hindi, superimposed on the bottom right-hand corner of his visual field, twenty-four hours a day, until the guy whacked himself.
  From Neil Stephenon's book: The Diamond Age (p 39)
  
  --
  What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
That's how it starts by eln · 2013-04-22 07:50 · Score: 3, Funny

Sure, first you can control the cell phone with your brain, then the cell phone can control your brain, and before you know it the Cybermen are invading.
1. Re:That's how it starts by Hatta · 2013-04-22 08:23 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  then the cell phone can control your brain
  Judging by most cell phone users, we're already there.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Prior Art by l0ungeb0y · 2013-04-22 08:01 · Score: 4, Funny

Apple has already trademarked "Think Different" and the use of a "Reality Distortion Field" for a device to control the thought processes of it's user. As you can see, this "innovation" by Samsung is just repurposing the real innovation previously done by Apple.
Cap by The+Grim+Reefer · 2013-04-22 08:08 · Score: 2

That research involves placing a cap 'studded with EEG-monitoring electrodes' atop the head of a convenient subject
The first production models will come standard with the propeller attachment.

subject, who then concentrates on an onscreen icon blinking at a particular rate. Concentrate hard enough, and the subject can launch...
the car they are driving into the car front of them or pedestrians in the crosswalk.
Won't work by backslashdot · 2013-04-22 08:16 · Score: 4, Funny

This won't work, a lot of phone users don't have a brain.
That's what I want by Snotnose · 2013-04-22 11:14 · Score: 4, Funny

My date asks "what are you thinking", and a few seconds later my phone starts playing porn who's star kinda looks like her.