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

Posted by samzenpus on 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."

7 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. I do that already... by Kenja · · 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 ArcadeMan · · 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
    2. Re:I do that already... by Seumas · · 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.

  2. It's been done by Emotiv by BurningTyger · · 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.

  3. Prior Art by l0ungeb0y · · 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.

  4. Won't work by backslashdot · · Score: 4, Funny

    This won't work, a lot of phone users don't have a brain.

  5. That's what I want by Snotnose · · 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.