From Touchpad To Thought-pad 92
An anonymous reader wrote with a story saying "Move over, touchpad screens: New research funded in part by the National Institutes of Health shows that it is possible to manipulate complex visual images on a computer screen using only the mind. The study, published in Nature, found that when research subjects had their brains connected to a computer displaying two merged images, they could force the computer to display one of the images and discard the other. The signals transmitted from each subject's brain to the computer were derived from just a handful of brain cells."
Re:Conflicted (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Thought-pad? (Score:0, Interesting)
That's probably not how brain/computer interfaces actually work (converting concepts into words). More likely its like how some people can learn to controle their heart rate, or we all learn to controle our limbs. When given feedback and connected to a system which responds to certain brain activity, your brain will over time adapt to allow controle over that activity and the end result is that you "just do it" without consiously understanding how you do it.
The problem obviously is that computers are designed to take most of theri input in methods that are not corelated well with the use case for such an interface (text commands and mouse/touch events). Instead what will have to happen is a series of "thought" events will be needed to be added into standard operating systems which can then be handled by the software running on the computer. The trickey part of the interface design will be determaning which sorts of brain activity are useful as thought events and what program features it makes sence to tie to them.
Re:Conflicted (Score:3, Interesting)
There's also something to be said about having WIRES IN YOUR BRAIN. Yes, I have an eye implant and have had doctors stick needles in that eye (twice), but it was to keep from going blind.
The only way I'd let them put wires in my brain would be to prevent or cure brain damage.