Researchers at Tufts University are conducting research to enhance user interfaces depending on blood flow in your brain.  Essentially using the blood flow as a marker for how high your current stress level is and hopefully more targeted information.

This would then be used to modify the user interface you work with to improve it conditionally to your behavior.

The technology is called Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS).  Basically it involves taking a headband full of infrared lasers, putting it on your head and shooting your brain with said lasers...ummm, sounds worse than it is.

The fNIRS device, which looks like a futuristic headband, uses laser diodes to send near-infrared light through the forehead at a relatively shallow depth—only two to three centimeters—to interact with the brain’s frontal lobe. Light usually passes through the body’s tissues, except when it encounters oxygenated or deoxygenated hemoglobin in the blood. Light waves are absorbed by the active, blood-filled areas of the brain and any remaining light is diffusely reflected to the fNIRS detectors.

[linky]

This is an interesting angle of research.  Not looking directly at the brain activity but at the blood supply. 

This segues nicely from the post I wrote yesterday: Will Wetware result in Telepathy?.

CNet News: [linky]

This is not necessarily a new invention but more of an INDUSTRY STANDARD.  This will hopefully allow for faster research in specific areas of brain computer interface.  Other researchers can focus on solving specific problems, they can use the MIT standard interface algorithm for the communication layer.

Fascinating.

MIT press release: [linky]

 Key point:

Until now, researchers working on brain prosthetics have used different algorithms depending on what method they were using to measure brain activity. The new model is applicable no matter what measurement technique is used, according to Srinivasan. "We don't need to reinvent a new paradigm for each modality or brain region," he said.

Journal of Neurophysiology, the research is due to be published in October: [linky]

Wetware and you. How I learned to not fear silicon.

In a world where all our expectations are routinely exceeded I have the expectation that we will one day have comprehensive, multi-faceted, robust wetware. What I mean by wetware is portable, ubiquitous, virtually invisible brain computer interface [BCI].

Some of you out in the audience may scoff at this prediction on several grounds: it's only science fiction, it's too complex, the brain will never be understood to that degree, it's icky, who would be stupid enough to stick electronics in their brain.

My goal of this post is not to refute those arguments but to describe a potential outcome. I will only say that many things written about in science fiction years ago have come to pass, this could be another.

Capabilities. Google as my outer brain.

Among the many capabilities that I believe we will have at the tip of our mind will be the near instant access to all the information on the Internet. Think of it, we will be able to channel any and all the information, from any source in the world.

We will be able to view the world though enhanced sensations, what is called augmented reality. Visually directions might be placed over our world, a mobile heads up display as it were. We will have information provided to us about everyday objects, what they contain, how we might use them, are they helpful? Are they perhaps harmful?

Visual augmentation is already under research: eyetap.

And there is no reason why it only has to be visually enhanced. What you hear and feel and SMELL, could all be enhanced.

Will we still think in the same way if any and all information we want is at the wish of our brain? The power of memory will at least decrease as it will be unnecessary to remember anything. Already we see this occurring with handsets controlling peoples phone books. How many phone numbers do you know? How many phone numbers did your parents know?

The result will be far reaching and certainly a mixed bag of good and bad.

Personas. Part of you for everyone to see.

We will expose a part of our thinking and wishing to the outside world. This will be in some form of a persona or perhaps a simplistic statistic sheet. It will probably take many forms and there will likely need to be some sort of consortium that will establish industry standards...and Microsoft will probably create a competing standard that will in many ways be better but in some ways crippled.

This exposed persona or avatar or datasheet or "comic-bubble" will be a form of interface with other people. It will let them see who we are, what we are looking for, maybe what we are feeling, what we think about them.

And we will be able to see the avatar of others.

For all intents and purposes...Telepathy.

If we can see thoughts and feelings of others and they can see the same from us...isn't that the definition of telepathy?

[Definition: Telepathy...is a term used to describe the transfer of information on thoughts or feelings between individuals by means other than the five classical senses. Wikipedia]

I guess it isn't quite the historical fantasy of reading someone's mind, but in a way the reverse. Our mind (or a small portion of it) is exposed externally for the viewing.

What sort of interface will there be? Will our software mind automatically attach with another persona and exchange information? Or will it be a passive listening/watching interface? Will we be able to attach to more than one person? What sort of new crimes will be created from this technology? How do you define your personal space in this new world?

I of course have no answers to those questions? Merely more questions?

Will we end up hating EVERYBODY?

With regards to human interaction, we could see a greater polarization within the public much like we've seen in media consumption as the Internet has matured. With our viewpoints and emotions harder to hide and more on our sleeves as it were, people might tend to automatically gravitate towards only people of similar thinking as themselves.

This could hurt friendships as people have a more difficult time accepting people when some of their disparate thoughts and feelings are on display for the world to see.

How do you hide your politics, your religious feelings, your bigotry, your distaste? Because we all do right now. The bottling up inside our heads of all our unorganized and contradictory thoughts and feelings allows us to deal with everyone around us in a civilized manner. What if you can no longer edit your thoughts and feelings from the outside world?

There of course will need to be a way to prevent the display of all your inner most thoughts. I assume there will be differing levels of display. In public you show the bare minimum: first name [or handle], occupation, public contact info...and nada mucho.

With friends and family you would show more. Perhaps much more. It would bring a whole new meaning to the word homepage.

There would grow up around the exposed persona a whole range and breadth of supporting applications. This is a brand new market for software development that has no entrants in it yet.

Software that you can create and make billions off of

Filter programs: An easy means of controlling what is exposed to whom. This software package will probably be included with the original installation, but after market suites will probably have a niche to fill as well.

Spoofers: Do you want someone to think you like them but your true feelings get in the way? An emotion spoofer is perfect for this. Politicians will absolutely require this mind-mod.

Detectors: Do you want to know if someone is spoofing you? With the emotion spoofer detection application, you may not be able to find out what they truly think, but you will know if they are lying about it.

Environment overlay: Does your city look dull and gray? Get this package and make all the buildings rosy and pink. Hide the garbage, dull the stink. Change the settings to suit your tastes

Adware: Ah yes there will be money in them thar hills. Every new medium is followed by advertising. Why should this be any different. As you walk through the world targeted visitor ads will be displayed at any opportunity, trying to entice you to spend your hard earned money.

Ad-blocking software: With adware comes ad blocking software. They are two peas in a pod.

Who will build it?

Who will write the software?

What will the OS look like?

Will it be Linux or Windows?

Of course if its inside my brain I will probably want a Mac.

This is fascinating. Using the tongue as the interface with the brain for Brain Computer Interface (BCI). Cool idea.

Lotsa nerve endings, very sensitive, can discern pixels up to 64k...with some training this could be very interesting. And if they can work with the taste buds you could flavor colors...

a growing body of research indicates that the tongue may in fact be the second-best place on the body for receiving visual information from the world and transmitting it to the brain.

[linky]

techRivet has published more than a few articles about new user interfaces [linky], one of them dealing specifically with Brain Computer Interfaces [BCI]. But here is a company that is actually in the process of bringing BCI to market.

NeuroSky has developed a cost effective bio sensor and signal processing system for the consumer market. Our wearable technology unlocks worlds of new applications such as consumer electronics, health, wellness, education and training.

This is still vapor ware but there is some degree of non-hype to it

Yang is secretive about his company's product lineup because of a non-disclosure agreement with the manufacturer. But he said an international toy manufacturer plans to unveil an inexpensive gizmo with an embedded NeuroSky biosensor at the Japan Toy Association's trade show in late June. A U.S. version is scheduled to debut at the American International Fall Toy Show in October. - USA Today

Cool. Not wetware, but still BCI. If they are able to actual deliver this to market...well we'll just have to wait and see.

This is kinda the opposite of the Morse Code beats SMS interface article from a week ago. This might be snappy new technology, but will its performance surpass the current keyboard/mouse/screen UI? Because that is the most successful / fastest / lowest-barrier-to-learn interface so far developed.

Verdict: cool as a margarita on hot summer day...but I'm gonna wait for version 2.0.

hat tip: Sci Fi Tech

I have read science fiction since before I could grok and one of the most common "future" technologies used in the stories has been wetware: brain implants. William Gibson pushed the concept far into the mainstream with his cyberpunk novels such as Neuromancer and Count Zero. The Matrix movies took it to an extreme. But that is all fiction, what is reality?

2002

I read an article in wired way back in 2002 [linky - Vision Quest] that talked about curing blindness through wetware.  It described a brain implant technology being developed at UCLA and other locations that put a diode under the patient's skull adjacent to their visual center of the brain and cured (partially, and with side effects) their blindness.

True wetware.

The side effects of seizures not-withstanding, this was an incredible breakthrough.

But where are we today?

BCI - circa 2007

Brain Computer Interfaces [BCI] is the official name given to this discipline and there is a lot of progress.

Check out this video from Berlin:

Now that isn't wetware, but it is BCI.

Brain implants are going to help quadriplegics

And if you have any doubt as to the applicability of such technology check out this video:

Now THAT is wetware, but it is only a first step.

Here is an article about the volunteer in the above video. Wired 2005 [linky - Mind Control]

Nagle, 25, is the first patient in a controversial clinical trial that seeks to prove brain-computer interfaces can return function to people paralyzed by injury or disease.

Convergence

We have convergence happening here as well. DARPA has initiated an effort to create breakthrough prosthetic limbs [linky]. Limbs that are radically better, have actual touch and feel and human reflexes. The example I've heard it explained like is Luke Skywalker's replacement hand at the end of Empire Strikes Back.

We are on the verge of true Cyborg technologies here. And at the speed at which the discoveries are being made, how fast scientists and engineers were able to improve year over year in the last DARPA challenge [linky - driverless cars], we could be in for quite a rollercoaster.

So we have breakthroughs coming in BCI, breakthroughs in prosthetics and breakthroughs coming in vision and hearing sensors. All of this is converging rapidly. You don't hear much about it, but we are going to wake up in just 5 or 10 years with capabilities far exceeding what we have today.

The Future

In the future will we all be hooked together into a World Wide Mind? In the video below some of the leading futurists talk about what might be in store of us. I don't hear much cautionary discussion coming from them. They speak of the benefits of the World Wide Mind, what about the drawbacks?

• the obliteration of privacy
• the potential for predators to abuse the technology
• the threat of a computer virus to physically harm people
• electrocution
• dependence on external power and support for your survival
• weather (lightning)
• more...

Yet one more example of accelerating change.

We think things are not changing because we are unable to see them in the context of time. Humans live in the present. If we were to back up to 1990 and view the current state of this field of research it would look incredible. And yet here, with us being so close to it all, we don't see it, we don't talk about it, we accept it as the norm.

It is not the norm. It is revolutionary.

The crippled will walk and the blind will see.

References:

Wikipedia:
Brain Implants - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_implant

Seeing what a cat sees:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/6/20/111815/063

bionic eye
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6368089.stm
http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2007/01/second_sight_me.html

Retina implant
http://www.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=bionic-eye.htm&url=http://www.optobionics.com/home.asp

Department of Biomedical Engineering at USC is working on a variety of different projects including retina implants, not quite true wetware  but related.[linky]