The minds of man and machine suffer from a glaring disconnect: The inability to interface directly with one another. We have to use our hands, keyboards, and mice to issue commands to our robotic minions and they can only respond via physical sensory mediums. But we can do better. We can use our minds. In fact, we already are.
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A slew of negatives plague video games — Peter Pan Syndrome, hyper-violence, camping — but their youthfulness could do just what Nintendo’s Brain Age promised: improve elderly brain function. Over four years, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco had a group play a custom game (video of it in action is after the break) that tasks players to drive and identify road signs that appear while ignoring certain others, according to the New York Times. It’s not quite Grand Theft Auto, but it proved how hard successfully multitasking becomes with age. However, after training with the game, the 60 to 80 year old test subjects stomped those a fraction of their age who had no prior exposure to it. What’s more, this experience produced brain functionality benefits outside of the game.
This isn’t a fluke, either. For proof, the scientists used electroencephalography to monitor the older subjects and found that while playing, the theta wave activity — associated with attention — in their prefrontal cortexes looked like that of a younger adult’s. These findings may help scientists understand what areas of the brain “could and should” be manipulated to improve cognitive functions like memory. The study appears in today’s edition of Nature and backs up similar research from May that also used a concentration-heavy game, and reported like results. Now if you’ll pardon us, we have to show our parents that all those hours of our childhood weren’t wasted.
Filed under: Gaming, Science, Alt
Source: New York Times
Customized scarves are nothing new, but artists Varvara Guljajeva and Mar Canet still came up with something truly novel and different in this category.
They worked with Sebastian Mealla from the Music Technology Group in Barcelona to create something called Neuro Knitting.
The process is described as follows:
Neuro Knitting represents a novel way of personal, generative design and fabrication. An approach that brings together affective computing and digital crafts. And thus, it offers new applications and creative thinking to both areas. It’s basically a process where you, the person who wants a new one-of-a-kind scarf, wears an EEG cap and listens to 10 minutes of classical music. Your brain activity is recorded and transferred into a knitting pattern using a program called Knitic.
A custom scarf is then knitted from this pattern, and voila! You’ve got a truly unique brainwave-patterned scarf that’s yours, in every sense of the word.
But note that if you have something against Bach’s Goldberg Variations, you’ll probably have one chaotic-looking scarf.
Are your thoughts usually all over the place? Do you have difficulty keeping your thoughts at bay? Then you might need something like the Melon EEG headband to help you get your thoughts in order.
Spelled out, EEG stands for “electroencephalography”, which is the act of measuring brain activity along your scalp. This is basically what the Melon headband does when you wear it and go about your daily routine. Apart from just recording your brain activity, Melon’s special algorithms translates this data into a measure of focus.
On its Kickstarter project page, the Melon wireless headband app is described as being “built to be worn while engaging in a variety of activities – from working, to studying, playing sports, dancing, practicing an instrument, programming, painting, or doing yoga.” The system boasts of turning focus into a “measurable” and “understandable” variable – something that I’m sure a lot of people would be interested in.
Aside from determining your level of focus, Melon also provides personalized feedback and insights on how its wearer can increase and improve his or her focus. It even offers suggestions for activities like origami to achieve that purpose.
The Melon headband and app is currently up for funding through June 13 on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $99(USD) will get you one of your very own.
[via C|NET]
Researchers from the University of Minnesota seem hellbent on turning us all into Professor X — minus the hoverchair and Patrick Stewart-ly good looks, obviously. Why’s that, you ask? Well, back in 2011, the team devised a method, using non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG), to allow test subjects to steer computer generated aircraft. Fast forward to today and that very same team has managed to translate their virtual work into real-world mind control over a quadrocopter. Using the same brain-computer interface technique, the team was able to successfully demonstrate full 3D control over an AR.Drone 1.0, using a video feed from its front-facing camera as a guide.
But it’s not quite as simple as it sounds. Before mind-handling the drone, subjects underwent a training period that lasted about three months on average and utilized a bevy of virtual simulators to let them get acquainted with the nuances of mental navigation. If you’re wondering just how exactly these human guinea pigs were able to fly a drone using thought alone, just imagine clenching your fists. That particular mental image was responsible for upward acceleration. Now imagine your left hand clenched alone… that’d cause it to move to the left; the same goes for using only the right. Get it? Good. Now, while we wait for this U. of Minnesota team to perfect its project (and make it more commercial), perhaps this faux-telekinetic toy can occupy your fancy.
Filed under: Robots
Via: SlashGear
Source: Journal of Neural Engineering
Samsung’s got no shortage of alternate control methods up its sleeve. You’ve got your eye scroll and your air gestures, but how about full on mind-control? Samsung’s messing with it, but it probably won’t be coming to consumer devices very soon. Probably. More »
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.
Via: BGR
Source: MIT Technology Review
When you consider how easy it is for anyone to look over your shoulder while you’re typing in your password, as secure as you believe it to be, there will always be a way for people to figure it out of they really want to. But it looks like a future of typing in passwords may be a thing of the past thanks to a new project that is using “passthoughts.”
School of Information researchers used a consumer-based headset that had built-in electroencephalogram (EEG) and developed a way for users to authenticate their log in credentials by only using their brain waves. The EEG-equipped device they uses was a Neurosky Mindset, which at only costs $199. The low-cost of the headset are the key here as in the past, using an EEG-equipped headset would not only be more expensive, but they were also invasive. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Nomad Portable Espresso Machine Functions Without Electricity, The BikeSpike Is A Tracking Device That Will Help Owners Locate Stolen Bikes, 
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.
Via: New Scientist
Source: PLOS (PDF)
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