Next: Consumer-facing neurotechnologies to augment everyday work and life

Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Could Lead to Thought-Con­trolled Devices (BizTech):

“To inter­act with a com­put­er, users gen­er­al­ly type on a key­board, swipe their fin­gers across a screen or speak a voice com­mand. What if, instead, the machine sim­ply respond­ed to their thoughts?

Researchers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego have spent years devel­op­ing a portable cere­bral mon­i­tor­ing device that when wrapped around the head — sim­i­lar to a vir­tu­al real­i­ty head­set — can allow users to con­trol a com­put­er by sim­ply think­ing what they want the machine to do. Spe­cial­ized soft­ware enables this head­set to inter­pret brain activ­i­ty, trans­lat­ing it into commands…says Tim Mullen, a Ph.D. grad­u­ate of the uni­ver­si­ty who is devel­op­ing the soft­ware. “The rate of sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal progress in the field is rapid­ly accel­er­at­ing. We want to push this progress into prac­tice, bridg­ing the gap between emerg­ing sen­sor hard­ware, neu­ro­science research and prac­ti­cal real-world applications…”

Addi­tion­al con­sumer-fac­ing appli­ca­tions for these head­sets might some­day include a num­ber of dif­fer­ent func­tions, from nov­el forms of inter­ac­tive enter­tain­ment to new ways of inter­fac­ing with the Inter­net of Things, such as smart homes, work­places, mobile devices and even vehi­cles that respond to a user’s men­tal and phys­i­cal acuity.”

To learn more:

• 10 neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment and brain health
• Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy can improve our lives…if we first address these Pri­va­cy and Informed Con­sent issues
• Info­graph­ic on Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy: A Ground­break­ing Analy­sis of 10,000+ Patent Fil­ings Trans­form­ing Med­i­cine, Health, Enter­tain­ment and Business