MESSAGE
| DATE | 2013-09-29 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Mind Control Copyright
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When I was a very small boy I thought I wanted to write computer
programs because computers will control the world in my future. My
future is now largely used up, so what would a young 6 YO Ruben think if
he was born today?
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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130829-mind-brain-control-robot-brainwave-eeg-3d-printing-music/
Scientists achieved the first remote human-to-human brain interface this
week, when Rajesh Rao sent a brain signal over the Internet that moved
the hand of colleague Andrea Stocco—even though Stocco was sitting
all the way across the University of Washington's campus.
Using one human brain to direct another person's body via the Internet
was an amazing breakthrough. But other feats of mind control are already
realities, particularly in the realm of human machine interfaces (HMIs).
Here are some amazing examples of what our brains can already do.
Compose and Play Music
Yes, music composition always took place in the brain. But now musicians
might be able to eliminate the need for tools and interfaces like sheet
music—or even playing an instrument—by simply creating music
directly with their thoughts.
Electroencephalography (EEG) headwear devices record the electric
signals that are produced when the brain is at work and can connect them
wirelessly to a computer. Their wearers can also train their minds to
associate a set of EEG brain signals with a specific task.
For example, thinking about pushing a button on the computer screen
produces a brainwave pattern that computer software can then recognize
and associate with that task.
To make music, such thoughts are associated with notes or sounds to
create a language of musical thought that's produced directly from the
brain. With this established, users can simply think musical scores to
life and play them via the computer.
For an example of the way the mind can create music and other forms of
art, check out the MiND ensemble (Music in Neural Dimensions) from the
University of Michigan.
Screen Mobile Phone Calls
Like a tough personal secretary, Ruggero Scorcioni's Good Times app
filters the incoming calls of busy mobile phone users by simply
monitoring the state of the user's brain.
Earlier this year, Scorcioni won an AT&T Mobile App Hackathon with the
iOS app, which uses the cuddly Necomimi Cat Ears brainwave-reading
headset to monitor brain activity and reroute calls to voicemail when it
perceives that the user's brain is busy with other tasks. If the user's
brain is in a receptive state, it lets the call through.
With $30,000 in Hackathon prize money in hand, Scorcioni is fine-tuning
his prototype, which he views as a first step in the way our brain
states might directly control mobile devices and our individual
environments. Someday it might enable more brain-driven mobile device
features that require no user input, like his Good Tunes concept, which
would read brainwaves and then play music best matching the wearer's
personal preferences for their current brain state.
Create a 3-D Object
Can wishing for something make it so? Well, not quite. But a Chilean
company has announced the first object to be created by thought
alone—paired with the growing power of the latest 3-D printing
machines.
George Laskowsky, the chief technical officer of the Santiago-based
startup Thinker Thing, created the first-ever such object in January
2012.
The Thinker Thing system employs an Emotiv EPOC EEG headset to map its
wearer's brainwaves. Then the company's own software, called Emotional
Evolutionary Design, displays "building block" shapes on a computer
screen.
From a basic beginning, the shapes change and "evolve," while the user's
emotional positive and negative reactions to each change are monitored
by the headset. As the software processes brain feedback, the
well-received shapes and changes are kept and expanded, while the
disliked ones fade away. The process is repeated until a final object is
produced according to the thought preferences of the designer.
The company's Monster Dreamer project gave schoolkids the opportunity to
use the software to create the monster of their dreams, or nightmares,
in a matter of minutes.
Drive a Wheelchair—And a Car
For the disabled, the ability to move about using the power of their
minds could be life changing. To that end, scientists have worked for
years on wheelchairs and other devices that could restore mobility to
those who had lost control of their own bodies but still had sharp
minds.
By 2009, Japanese scientists at Toyota and research lab RIKEN announced
a thought-controlled wheelchair that used an EEG sensor cap to capture
brainwaves and turn them into directional commands in just 125
thousandths of a second—with 95 percent accuracy.
At Lausanne, Switzerland's Federal Institute of Technology, scientists
have added "shared control" to the concept. Their chair's software
analyzes the surrounding area's cluttered environment and blends that
information with the driver's brain commands to avoid problems like
collisions with objects.
The system also eases the strain of command because users needn't
continually instruct the chair—the software processes a single
directional command and automatically repeats it as often as needed to
navigate the space.
German engineers at the Free University of Berlin have attempted to take
this concept on the open road with a car that can be partially
controlled by the driver's thoughts. The team took an autonomous
Volkswagen Passat, one of the emerging breed of driverless vehicles, and
outfitted it with a computer system and software designed to work with
Emotiv's commercially available EEG brain-scanning headset.
Drivers were trained to produce recognizable thought commands, like
"turn left," by manipulating a virtual cube on a screen. The onboard
computer then analyzed and converted those thoughts to commands
recognized by the car itself each time they were thought by the driver.
(See the successful results here.)
The "BrainDriver" application is not roadworthy yet, the team cautions
on their website. "But on the long run, human machine interfaces like
this could bear huge potential in combination with autonomous
driving--for example, when it comes to decide which way you want to take
on a crossroad, while the autonomous cab drives you home."
"Bionic" Limbs
In some instances, human machine interfaces are becoming part of the
human body. One new prosthetic even provides a sense of "touch" like
that of a natural arm, because it interfaces with the wearer's neural
system by splicing to residual nerves in the partial limb.
The prosthetic sends sensory signals to the wearer's brain that produce
a lifelike "feel," allowing users to operate it by touch rather than by
sight alone. This ability enables tasks many take for granted, like
removing something from inside a grocery bag, and knowing how hard to
grip items with the prosthetic hand.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University, now working with the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), developed the
prosthetic, which can be seen in action here and was unveiled in May
2013. DARPA is a leader in the development of advanced prosthetics, in
part because more than 2,000 U.S. Service members have undergone
amputations since 2000.
Another DARPA-backed prosthetic arm flips this script by efficiently
transmitting information from brain to arm, rather than vice versa,
through a technique called targeted muscle re-innervation. The procedure
rewires nerves from amputated limbs to enable more natural brain control
of the prosthetic—and make possible some amazing abilities.
In this video taken at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, former
Army Staff Sgt. Glen Lehman, who was wounded in Iraq, demonstrates his
ability to manipulate the arm with his mind, drink coffee, and bounce a
tennis ball with a prosthetic limb. In some cases, experts say,
prosthetics can already offer more functionality than heavily damaged
human limbs.
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