Brain Loop Reads Your Mind

I can distinctly remember reviewing government sponsored research around Brain Controlled Interfaces (BCI) in the 90′s.  The military wanted the technology so that pilots could fly and do multiple tasks with their minds.  It conjures up the movie Firefox with Clint Eastwood.  In that movie, Eastwood steals a Firefox airplane from the Russians.  That plane was a prototype, thought-controlled Mig fighter.  And Eastwood has to think in Russian to get the airplane to respond to him.  I loved that movie.  Well, those kinds of movies are fast becoming much more feasible.  The Graz University of Technology in Austria has come up with some nice BCI demonstrations.

According to Graz:

“the self-paced 3-class Graz brain-computer interface (BCI) which is based on the detection of sensorimotor electroencephalogram (EEG) rhythms induced by motor imagery. Self-paced operation means that the BCI is able to determine whether the ongoing brain activity is intended as control signal (intentional control) or not (non-control state). The presented system is able to automatically reduce electrooculogram (EOG) artifacts, to detect electromyographic (EMG) activity, and uses only three bipolar EEG channels. Two applications are presented: the freeSpace virtual environment (VE) and the Brainloop interface. The freeSpace is a computer-game-like application where subjects have to navigate through the environment and collect coins by autonomously selecting navigation commands. Three subjects participated in these feedback experiments and each learned to navigate through the VE and collect coins. Two out of the three succeeded in collecting all three coins. The Brainloop interface provides an interface between the Graz-BCI and Google Earth.”

They recently presented the Brain Loop interface at WiredNext in California.  The following video shows a person controlling Google Earth with their mind.  It really is pretty sick.

And here is the trailer for Firefox the movie.  I had to laugh at the use of superlatives.  “The most devastating killing machine ever built…” “The most daring US Fighter Pilot ever…”  Good stuff.

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