Foc.us headset claims to shock the brain for better gaming, we go forehead-on

Focus headset stimulates your brain, hones in on gaming foreheadon

We’ve seen a number of headsets tap into the mind, to geotag your mood, grant you remote control over gadgets or simply let you wiggle a pair of cat ears. None of those are quite like the foc.us, however, which serves up transcranial direct-current simulation (tDCS) — a controversial form of neurosimulation that transmits current to a particular area of the brain. Originally used to help patients with brain injuries, tDCS has supposedly been found to increase cognitive performance in healthy adults. These claims haven’t been proven yet though, and shocking your own cranium isn’t exactly FDA approved.

Still, the foc.us is one of a few tDCS headsets designed for the consumer market and can, the inventor Michael Oxley claims, improve your working or short-term memory when the electrodes are placed on your prefrontal cortex. A low-intensity current is passed through the different nodes, exciting that part of the brain. Interestingly, Oxley is positioning it as a way to boost your video gaming prowess for the “ultimate gaming experience,” a concept we found a little odd. That said, you don’t actually have to wear the headset while shooting up bad guys or other brain-draining tasks. The idea behind the foc.us headset is to put it on your noggin, fire it up, and wait for around five to ten minutes, then take it off and go about your day. We did just that and all the gory details are after the break.

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Source: foc.us

Baseball-playing Robot Has a Real Fake Brain

Researchers at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo and the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology have built a small humanoid robot. Nothing unusual there. Everybody is building robots these days, and one day soon we will all regret it. But this robot plays baseball. Or, at least can hit a ball.


Granted, the ‘bot holds a fan-like bat that even I could hit a ground-rule double with, but this robot is about more than just hitting balls. Like a human, it may miss at first, but with each new pitch it adjusts its swing accordingly – just like how a human learns. That’s because this robot has an artificial brain with 100,000 neurons. This complex “brain” is actually based on an Nvidia graphics processor, along with software developed by the chipmaker.

For now, the scientists have programmed these neurons for this specific task, but this will help them understand how to create a better fake brain in the future. Great. I can’t wait for actual thinking robot ball players who also want to make millions of dollars a year. And then beat us with bats when we don’t.

[via WIRED via Botropolis]

Samsung explores touchless tablet interaction with brainwave technology

Samsung explores touchless tablet interaction with brainwave technology

Try and wrap this one around your noggin. Samsung is currently working with researchers at the University of Texas on a project involving EEG caps that harnesses the power of one’s mind to control tablets and smartphones, and if that weren’t enough, the company’s actually hoping to take it mainstream. Now, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s be clear: in its current stage, the system is cumbersome and aimed at those with disabilities, but Samsung’s already proven that it’s interested in alternative input methods, and this could certainly be the logical conclusion.

As is, participants are asked to wear EEG caps that measure the electrical activity along their scalp. Then, they’re able to make selections by focusing on an icon that flashes at a distinct frequency from others, which the system recognizes as a unique electrical pattern. Overall, the accuracy of the system is in the ballpark of 80 to 95 percent, and users are able to make selections on average of every five seconds. In order to make the system more approachable, the researchers hope to develop EEG hats that are more convenient and less intrusive — in other words, ones that people can wear throughout the day. We can’t promise this type of futuristic tech will come anytime soon, but for a closer peek, hit up the source link for a peek at Samsung’s next wild idea.

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Via: BGR

Source: MIT Technology Review

Universities inject neuron-sized LEDs to stimulate brains without a burden (video)

Universities inject neuronsized LEDs to light up brains for study without the headaches

Existing methods for controlling brain activity tend to skew the results by their very nature — it’s difficult to behave normally with a wad of optical fibers or electrical wires in your head. The University of Illinois and Washington University have developed a much subtler approach to optogenetics that could lift that weight from the mind in a very literal sense. Their approach inserts an extra-thin ribbon into the brain with LEDs that are about as big as the neurons they target, stimulating deeper parts of the mind with high precision and minimal intrusion; test mice could act as if the ribbon weren’t there. The solution also lets researchers detach the wireless transceiver and power from the ribbon to lighten the load when experiments are over. Practical use of these tiny LEDs is still a long ways off, but it could lead to both gentler testing as well as better treatment for mental conditions that we don’t fully understand today.

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Via: Mobile Magazine

Source: University of Illinois

Why Do We Get Emotional When We Drink?

Drinking influences our personalities in a variety of ways. Some people get happy. Others turn combative or impulsive. At one time or another, though, we’ve all been the emotional drunk, a condition typically marked by ill-timed espousals of affection (or reprisal), acute introspection, and an uncontrollable urge to cry in the middle of a crowded bar. More »

Scientists Can Make Brains Turn Transparent

Stanford scientists have developed a technique which lets them turn a brain completely transparent—without causing any damage at all to its structure. More »

Human Brain Can Now Control Rat’s Tail

Human Brain Can Now Control Rats TailYou know something? The phrase “I don’t give a rat’s ass” might not be too accurate, considering how the rear end of a rat has a tail hanging from it, but in the near future, we might soon see a variant of that particular phrase appear. In fact, Harvard researchers have recently published in PLOS ONE that they were running experiments to study and evaluate the effectiveness of transcranial focused ultrasound being used to trigger specific actions in an animal.

In order to achieve their goal, they placed an anesthetized rat in the lab, where an ultrasound device was carefully positioned over its scalp, with a human subject wearing an EEG cap which was hooked up to said ultrasound. It takes some time to fine tune the situation, but once successful, it functioned as a brain-to-brain interface, allowing the human being to actually move the rat’s tail using telepathy. Of course, the practical applications of this particular research remain rather limited for obvious reasons as this point in time, but could we be looking at a highly advanced model in the future, where we telepathically control a rat to infiltrate a building, acting as a “spy” for us?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Intel Starts Shipping Haswell Chips to PC Manufacturers, Firefox Beta Introduces Changes To Do Not Track Options,

Scientists Can Read Dreams Using Brain Scans

A team of scientists claim to have developed techniques which allows them to read dreams via brain scans—and it could help us better understand what goes on in the brain while we sleep. More »

Harvard lets human minds control rats, private rodent armies remain distant (video)

Harvard links human and rat minds, Pied Piper no longer required

Sure, we’ve seen rats control other rats, but that won’t give us a legion of mind-controlled creatures to unleash upon an innocent public, will it? Harvard Medical School may unwittingly assist with solving our (rather misguided) plight, as it just experimented with a system that lets a human mind trigger actions in a rat’s motor cortex. The test had sensor-equipped humans watch a screen that flashed in sync with their EEG brain patterns for visual stimulation; as soon their attention shifted to controlling the rat, they triggered an ultrasonic pulse that twitched the rodent’s tail. There’s a few problems with the implementation beyond the obvious lack of autonomy for the poor target creature, though. The rat’s anaesthetized state likely affected the results, and the system isn’t currently sophisticated enough to map specific thoughts to corresponding actions. The Harvard team is working to refine the technology, however, and there may be a day when we can satisfy our megalomania… or at least, put the Pied Piper on notice.

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Via: New Scientist

Source: PLOS (PDF)

Automatic Do-Not-Disturb Measures Your Brainwaves to Know When You’re Busy

Italian-born neuroscientist Ruggero Scorcioni has developed a new technology that will help you get stuff done by deflecting phone calls or other notifications away when you’re busy. Finally, technology to help keep your brainspace clear when you need it. More »