Just Think of It

I have seen the future--and it is keyboardless. Dig this:

Researchers in Berlin have come a step closer to developing a device that will enable people to write and manipulate objects by reading their mind.

The so-called mental typewriter that translates thoughts into cursor movements on a computer screen will be on display at the computer technology fair CeBIT, which opens in the German city of Hanover on March 9.
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The teams led by professors Klaus-Robert Mueller and Gabriel Curio have spent several years working on the Brain Computer Interface -- a system which allows for a direct dialogue between man and machine.

I'm not sure my computers would want to read my mind. They'd never talk to me again. But I digress...

Signals from the brain are measured by 128 electrodes affixed to the subject's scalp, similar to an electroencephalogram (EEG). With the help of a software programme, specific signals are picked out among the nebulous mass of information.

The computer's self-learning capacity allows it to identify individual brain patters and constantly improve its performance, says Mueller.

"It's like being at a cocktail party when you have to absorb what the person opposite you is saying above the din of music, the clinking of glasses and the sound of other voices," Mueller told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

Insert own joke here.

By analysing neural signals it is possible to determine before the actual movement takes place whether a person intends to move his or her right or left hand, for example.

"In one session the subject has different groups of letters to his left and right, which he picks out in his mind. After several more steps, he can choose a single letter," says Kaplow.

Another variation allows the thought process on the right side to move an arrow in a circle and that on the left side to click on individual letters.

Well, OK, so it still has a few kinks (and I don't mean Ray and Dave Davies):

"This way it takes five to 10 minutes to write a sentence," according to Kaplow.

A lot of time is taken up affixing the electrodes to the volunteer's scalp, a procedure which usually last for about one hour.