'Brain-to-Text' Interface Types Thoughts of Epileptic Patients 31
Jason Koebler writes with a link to Motherboard's article about research from the Schalk Lab of Albany, New York, where researchers "have just demonstrated for the first time that it's possible to turn a person's thoughts into a legible phrase using what they're calling a "brain-to-text" interface," writing "It's still still the early days of this technology—electrodes had to be placed directly on the brain and the 'dictionary' of phrases was limited. Still, brainwaves of thought patterns were turned into text at a rate much better than chance."
Every Six Seconds (Score:2)
Yes, I would like a happy ending with that.
Epilepsy is irrelevant (Score:2)
According to TFA they could hook this up to anybody. It was just that epilepsy patients were having invasive surgery done anyway.
Re: Epilepsy is irrelevant (Score:1)
Damn, I was imagining a guy having a seizure while doctors scramble to a dot-matrix printer to see what the poor guy is thinking instead of helping.
Re: (Score:1)
I am actually greatly hoping for a day when I can have my brain interface with a computer and the internet. i will even let them put a wireless antenna on my head and an ethernet jack into my neck. I would even volunteer to be an early adopter. I figure my brain can handle any malware but I fear my brain is closed source - or at least obfuscated code.
Re: (Score:2)
It's probably not that shitty. Once the appropriate code is written, it can probably recognize "I desire an apple. Tomorrow." and print it out. It might be able to recognize a person thin
Re: (Score:1)
This is no troll. This is a danger of this technology.
Re: (Score:2)
This is no troll. This is a danger of this technology.
It is both a danger and a promise of the technology. It can be used for brain-to-text, but also for other "mind-reading" tasks. A criminal suspect can be shown photos of the crime scene, or photos of the victim or other people known to be involved, and it is likely that it can detect whether the suspect recognizes the scene or person. This could be used to exonerate innocent people, but it could also be used as a tool of repressive authoritarianism to detect thought-crime.
And the message was... (Score:2)
"Ow my brain."
Additional power gained: (Score:2)
Anyone who had done this earns the right to dance around Kevin Warwick singing 'I'm more cyborg than you are' before ordering him to stop showing off to the public and get back to doing proper science.
Good job Mr Crichton (Score:3)
uh oh ... (Score:3, Funny)
Pretty entertaining and ahead of its time. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
A horror version: the epileptic patients actually perceive something outside of our understanding, something terrible to which their bodies react violently. The brain to text interface reveals the issue, like the ship logs in the Event Horizon.
This is actually quite amazing, folks! (Score:1)
This is truly incredible what they have accomplished! I was sure when I read the headline that this was going to be another typical case of modern day Slashdot headline madness. I was shocked when I read both of.the attached articles to discover this really does sound like the first step in creating brain to computer interfaces that used imagined speech to control. Very, very cool. Rather surprised at the lack of comments on this one. Maybe everyone assumed it was BS and didn't even bother clicking?
Re: (Score:2)
We've seen this same story every few years for as long as I can remember. I don't know how you missed it.
So far, we've seen a 100% BS rate. I don't expect that to change.
Re: (Score:1)
DId you read the journal article? Are you saying that experiment is non-repeatable pseudoscience or something?
It sounded at least plausible to me.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm saying it's far less dramatic than the article implies. For example, they're not reading people's thoughts (in the sense implied) or doing anything that would suggest that the technology could develop toward that end.
We've seen this countless times before. What makes you think that, this time, the sensationalized story doesn't deviate significantly from reality?
All they got consistently was (Score:1)
"Burma shave"