Scientists Demonstrate Thought-Controlled Computer

Da Massive writes with a link to ComputerWorld coverage of a unique gadget shown at this past week's CeBit show. The company g.tec was showing off a brain/computer interface (BCI) in one corner of the trade hall. The rig, once placed on your head, detects the brain's voltage fluctuations and can respond appropriately. This requires training, where "the subject responds to commands on a computer screen, thinking 'left' and 'right' when they are instructed to do so ... Another test involves looking at a series of blinking letters, and thinking of a letter when it appears." Once the system is trained, you can think letters at the machine and 'type' via your thoughts. Likewise, by thinking directions you can move objects around onscreen. The article provides some background on the history of g.tec's BCI, and suggests possible uses for the technology in the near future.

Type thoughts?

[vertinox]

Once the system is trained, you can think letters at the machine and 'type' via your thoughts.

That sounds rather cool, but wouldn't thinking words be faster?

When I think when I type I think the entire words and my hands type them without spelling the words out. (Kind of like playing the piano)

Of course I suppose this requires training the computer for several thousands words, but it would be having to think the actual spelling out of words at least speed wise.

This could make for a cool video game controller.

[BitterOak]

How long before someone patents the idea of using this for a video game controller? Imagine how cool it would be for your kids and their friends to sit in front of the TV wearing helmets and playing a video game without using their hands!

Miniluv anyone?

[logixoul]

/tinfoil hat on
Now that a machine can translate thoughts into words, how long before it's used in interrogations? What about sensitivity becoming good enough to work from a few meters? Inconspicuous guy passes by. Next thing you know, you love big brother.

Re:This could make for a cool video game controlle

[ryblo_f]

Everything old [atarimuseum.com] is new again?

Re:Type thoughts?

[blank axolotl]

The signal is too weak to be able to differentialte between 1,000s of possible word 'brain patterns'.
It can differentiate the 26 letter 'brain patterns' with effort:

The system today is also quite slow -- even a trained system can "read" only 18 characters per minute, or three or four words.

What I think might be cool to try is placing a pack of electrodes in a nerve leading to a non-essential muscle somewhere. I would guess you can get a much more reliable signal that way (if you set it up right), and maybe a more complex signal if that nerve carries multiple signals (eg one for each muscle in a pack of muscles). It would have much greater medical consequences than this brain-cap idea, though..

Re:Minor Problem

[Loconut1389]

funny joke aside- when you're not typing and someone talks to you, do you accidentally type what you're saying/thinking? That's not to say we don't accidentally type things we're saying if we're already typing-- but I think the way this works is, it would be a separate 'extension' of ourselves- just like we 'think' about moving our fingers to type- this would be thinking the letters into the computer.

What?

[Bwana Geek]

This is in no way new technology. Neurofeedback has been studied since the twenties. I studied this about 10 years ago, and my professor was active in the field, so I got to learn about all kinds of cool stuff they were doing. Basically (probably starting around the 70s or 80s), researchers could wire you up to an EEG biofeedback machine and put you in front of a monitor with several bars or other graphics on it. They would then tell you something like, "Make the third bar grow higher." This would be done by, for example, increasing your brain's beta waves, but you had to figure out on your own how to do that by concentrating until the screen did what you wanted it to do. For children, they made it into a game: A plane is flying along the horizon and you need to make it rise and fall to avoid obstacles. Some very cool stuff with fantastic real world applications: Teaching epileptics how to alter teir brain wave patterns to stop a seizure before it starts, methods of fighting depression without drugs, etc. the list goes on.

It's fascinating stuff, and definitely recommended reading if you can find any material on it.

Re:This could make for a cool video game controlle

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.wilddivine.com/products/WildDivineBundl ePack/ [wilddivine.com]

There is actually a suite of games, FEATURING DEEPAK CHOPRA!!

Brain wave sensor

[Sanat]

A few years ago I attended a party that someone had brought a brain wave scanner. The device attached to the head via some suction cups as I recall. The box measured the frequencies of the mind for both the left side and the right side and indicated the relative strength on a scale of 0-10 (using Leds) for each frequency band (about 20 bands).

We had a lot of fun playing with it. For instance, when meditating... decreases in the Beta ranges and increases the Alpha ranges would occur and that kind of thing. Each person had their own uniques readings where some were mainly right brained and others were left and usually just in the beta ranges causing those corresponding Leds to illuminate.

When they asked me to try it, All 10 Leds for every frequencies band for both the left side and the right side illuminated. It was like the whole board lit up. Every single Led was lit which was approximately 400 or so.

Everyone looked at me a little weirdly and actually took a step backwards.

It would be interesting to see if other slashdotters also use all of their brain all of the time.

Medical purposes

[sabernet]

Very awesome news for quadriplegics or those suffering full blown paralysis.

Re:Type thoughts?

[linguizic]

Inter-dialectal differences probably pale in comparison to interpersonal differences.

If we are looking at the phones themselves then this can't be the case. The phones are where dialectical differences are at their greatest. With the exception of people who have had damage done to their brains, the "neurogeography" of the brain is pretty uniform.

In this context I believe there are two ways we can speak of phonemes. There is the linguistic unit in whatever metaphysical incarnation whatever the dominant theory gives it, and there is the conscious knowledge of the sounds of speech--without which we would not be able to learn to read and write. It is the knowledge of speech sounds that arises after metalinguistic awareness is reached. I guess a better name for this unit would be "metaphone". Where this knowledge is stored would be directly or indirectly linked to all the neurological aspects of the phoneme that correlates with the metaphone. I believe this would be the route to go if we want to go the phoneme route because it too would reduce variation as the result of the way we are currently , but it would still be as slow as thinking out A - B - C - D- E, etc. So here we are again at phonemes being not the way to go.

I never completely bought OT, though that might be the result of who taught it to me, and the text she chose to teach from. I'm hard pressed to say that realized forms are the product of garbage going down the chute and getting sieved into grammatical constructions. If this is an unfair generalization please feel free to make a better generalization and make me a better informed individual on this matter.

I would love to keep going but now I have to put my children to bed.