A team of researchers in Switzerland brings brain-computer interfaces to the next level--by making them less exhausting. And a team in Germany makes them scarier--by showing that you can even use them to drive a car.
Telekinesis is tough work. Brain-computer interfaces are increasingly becoming a reality, enabling neuro-prosthetics, brain-powered wheelchairs, and even thought-controlled pinball machines. The problem, though, is that using brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can require an exhausting level of concentration, and are rarely able to be effectively used for more than an hour (which is okay for the pinball dilettante, but hardly so for the quadriplegic).
Now a research team at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (Epfl) in Switzerland is working to solve this problem, by engineering BCIs that allow users to rest their brains--and even to multitask.
Typically, even simply telling a brain-powered wheelchair to "keep going straight" requires intense focus. But the Lausanne researchers, headed up by Jose del R.
Telekinesis is tough work. Brain-computer interfaces are increasingly becoming a reality, enabling neuro-prosthetics, brain-powered wheelchairs, and even thought-controlled pinball machines. The problem, though, is that using brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can require an exhausting level of concentration, and are rarely able to be effectively used for more than an hour (which is okay for the pinball dilettante, but hardly so for the quadriplegic).
Now a research team at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (Epfl) in Switzerland is working to solve this problem, by engineering BCIs that allow users to rest their brains--and even to multitask.
Typically, even simply telling a brain-powered wheelchair to "keep going straight" requires intense focus. But the Lausanne researchers, headed up by Jose del R.
- 2/18/2011
- by David Zax
- Fast Company
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