Brain Controlled Cell Phones

A company called NeuroSky Inc, has built a prototype of a system that reads brain waves and uses them to control a mobile phone! They held a demonstration at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2008 in San Francisco last week.

The demonstrated applications include:
(1) an application to show the degree of brain's relaxation on the screen of a mobile phone by using a visualizer
(2) an application to show the degree of brain's tension in chronological order after a user solves about 10 arithmetical problems (addition, multiplication, etc) shown on the screen of a mobile phone
(3) a game application to move a video game character to an intended place as quickly as possible on the screen of a mobile phone. The more the degree of brain's concentration, the more quickly the character moves.

As for (1), when a user calms his or her mind on purpose, the curving lines drawn by the visualizer change to various colors. With regard to (2), if an appropriate application is developed, it will be possible to realize a brain training game in which the challenge level changes in real time in accordance with the degree of brain's tension.

Link -Thanks, Yash!

Comments (4)

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I'm the first to be optimistic about new technology, and I hate how 95% of people on the internet immediately try to rip apart anything new in an effort to prove how "informed" they are. That said, nearly every time I see a story about "brain controlled" anything, it turns out to be simple biofeedback. This has been around since the 1960s. Showing your level of relaxation using different graphics doesn't make it any more functional. Until I can tell the phone who to call using thought, I don't consider it brain controlled.