DARPA paving the way for a future brain-based Internet

___ DARPA Wants Brain Inter­faces for Able-Bod­ied Warfight­ers (IEEE Spec­trum): “Until now, the neu­ro­science pro­grams at DARPA, the mad sci­ence wing of the Depart­ment of Defense, have focused on tech­nolo­gies for warfight­ers who have returned home with dis­abil­i­ties of the body or brain. For exam­ple, pro­grams have fund­ed research on pros­thet­ic limbs that are wired…

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DARPA invests in nonsurgical neurotechnologies for eventual use in healthy human subjects

___ Non­sur­gi­cal Neur­al Inter­faces Could Sig­nif­i­cant­ly Expand Use of Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy (DARPA News): “Over the past two decades, the inter­na­tion­al bio­med­ical research com­mu­ni­ty has demon­strat­ed increas­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed ways to allow a per­son­’s brain to com­mu­ni­cate with a device, allow­ing break­throughs aimed at improv­ing qual­i­ty of life, such as access to com­put­ers and the inter­net, and more…

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For invasive cognitive enhancement to work, firms will need to validate both the “neuro” and the “tech”

— A Hard­ware Update for the Human Brain (The Wall Street Jour­nal): “The field that gave Emi­ly her life back is known as neu­rotech­nol­o­gy, or sim­ply neurotech—a mar­riage of neu­rol­o­gy, neu­ro­science, neu­ro­surgery and the kind of hard­ware that goes into smart­phones. Today, most neu­rotech com­pa­nies are focused on med­ical appli­ca­tions, which 

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May e‑newsletter: MIT Solve launches Brain Health Challenge, asking “How can every person improve their brain health and mental resilience?”

—– Time for Sharp­Brains’ May e‑newsletter, high­light­ing what’s new in brain health and men­tal per­for­mance, and fea­tur­ing a very rel­e­vant MIT ini­tia­tive and a thought-pro­­vok­ing study on the “Cog­ni­tive Divide.” New think­ing MIT Solve launch­es Brain Health Chal­lenge: How can every per­son improve their brain health and men­tal resilience? Men­tal Health Inno­va­tion and Dr. Tom Insel:…

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Eight research teams working with DARPA to discover best ways to activate neuroplasticity and accelerate learning

DARPA Funds Brain-Stim­u­la­­tion Research to Speed Learn­ing (DoD news): “The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is work­ing with sev­en U.S. uni­ver­si­ties and ele­ments of the Air Force and Army on research that seeks to stim­u­late the brain in a non-inva­­sive way to speed up learn­ing. DARPA announced the Tar­get­ed Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty Train­ing, or TNT, program

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Next: Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) meet brain scanning and human enhancement

— Face­book, Apple and the Com­ing Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty Land Grab (Vari­ety): “Two new reports sug­gest that two of Sil­i­con Valley’s biggest com­pa­nies are secret­ly work­ing on aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR) tech­nol­o­gy. It may take some time before Apple is going to reveal its efforts in the space, but Face­book may give us a glance at its…

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