Playing With Your Head
from the look-no-hands dept
While it's been suggested before, a bunch of researchers at Washington University have actually developed way to control a video game using brainwaves measured by invasively placing electrodes on a human brain. (This is not to be confused with the EEG electrodes that are placed non-invasively on top of the head.) Four adult epilepsy patients were being studied with these brain implants, and they could fairly accurately control virtual movements just by thinking. Amazingly, this method only takes about an hour to learn how to move things, compared to months of training when they use the method that doesn't involve opening up the skull. While this is certainly a breakthrough for patients with disabilities, far in the future this could be a commonplace human-computer interface.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
