CNN’s Ana Maria Mon­tero inter­views Ned Sahin. The dis­cus­sion about the impact of EU pri­va­cy laws starts in minute 10.

Sto­ry descrip­tion (CNN Mon­ey): Ned Sahin is founder and CEO of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy start-up Brain Pow­er, whose tool “Empow­er Me” uses smart glass­es like Google Glass to coach those with autism. It helps school­child­ren learn social and cog­ni­tive skills and can even guide adults through an inter­view process. Brain Power’s prod­uct is sold to many schools in the U.S. but may nev­er make it to mar­ket in Switzer­land Read the rest of this entry »

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F1’s McLaren Rac­ing Extends Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Part­ner­ship With Mind­Maze (Sport­Techie):

“For­mu­la 1 team McLaren Rac­ing has signed a mul­ti-year part­ner­ship with Swiss neu­rotech­nol­o­gy firm Mind­Maze to con­tin­ue test­ing neu­rosens­ing tech­nol­o­gy on its dri­vers.

MindMaze’s com­bi­na­tion of vir­tu­al real­i­ty, motion cap­ture and EEG brain scans has pre­vi­ous­ly Read the rest of this entry »

After a very busy month, it’s time now for Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter to sum­ma­rize the lat­est ini­tia­tives, tools and ideas for life­long brain health and men­tal fit­ness — and to share a few puz­zles and illu­sions to tease your brain.

A grow­ing num­ber of class­rooms in Chi­na are equipped with arti­fi­cial-intel­li­gence cam­eras and brain-wave track­ers. Video: Crys­tal Tai for The Wall Street Jour­nal.

New neuro-infused education and healthcare initiatives:

• Chi­na is har­ness­ing brain-wave track­ers and arti­fi­cial-intel­li­gence to raise bet­ter (and more com­pli­ant?) stu­dents
• Report calls for wide class­room-based adop­tion of ten brain fit­ness pro­grams designed to improve foun­da­tion­al exec­u­tive func­tions
• The Nation­al Health Ser­vice (NHS) in the UK con­sid­ers adding a 5‑minute cog­ni­tive test to its annu­al health check-up
• CVS Health: Cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT) apps may help you more than sleep­ing pills

New neurotech and digital health tools:

• What does the Face­book acqui­si­tion of CTRL-Labs mean for Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and Aug­ment­ed & Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty?
• Start­up Aur­al Ana­lyt­ics rais­es $4.3M to mon­i­tor neu­ro­log­i­cal health by ana­lyz­ing speech pat­terns
• Will per­son­al­ized med­i­ta­tion apps be able to repli­cate the expe­ri­ence of work­ing with a coach?
• IBM, VA and Total Brain to test dig­i­tal men­tal health plat­form for vet­er­ans and reservists

New thinking on brain and mental health:

• Two great pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties with renowned neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg
• Apple/ Eli Lilly’s bet: Wear­able and mobile con­sumer devices may well help us detect cog­ni­tive impair­ment and demen­tia
• May “indus­try review boards” con­tribute to the wider adop­tion of vir­tu­al and aug­ment­ed real­i­ty for phys­i­cal and men­tal health?

Finally, a few fun brain teasers for adults and kids alike 🙂

• Tease your brain with the Her­mann Grid illu­sion
• Brain teas­er to test your pat­tern recog­ni­tion: Fill the void
• Math brain teas­er requir­ing no math — just per­cep­tion and cog­ni­tion

Have a great month of Octo­ber,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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While sit­ting at din­ner with an unsus­pect­ing friend, my phone blew up with odd­ly-late mes­sages from fel­low neu­rotech­nol­o­gy com­rades. CTRL-Labs announced their impend­ing acqui­si­tion by Face­book and inte­gra­tion into Face­book Real­i­ty Labs (respon­si­ble for Ocu­lus et al.), for enough mon­ey to buy my guilt-induc­ing­ly-expen­sive New York cof­fee for a mea­ger 550,000 years. Woah—so very many ques­tions. I fig­ured I’d share Read the rest of this entry »

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Indus­try review boards are need­ed to pro­tect VR user pri­va­cy (World Eco­nom­ic Forum blog):

“It seemed like a game when Riley first start­ed the vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) maze … A month after play­ing the game, Riley was turned down for a new life-insur­ance pol­i­cy. Giv­en his excel­lent health, he couldn’t under­stand why. Sev­er­al appeals lat­er, the insur­ance com­pa­ny dis­closed that Riley’s track­ing data from the VR maze game revealed behav­ioral move­ment pat­terns often seen among peo­ple in the very ear­ly stages of demen­tia Read the rest of this entry »