Braingate--a new way of interacting with your computer
This article at StreetFish provides a summary of the ongoing research with brain implants at Brown university. It shows some (early) exciting results for enabling people with disabilities and perhaps increased HCI for everyone.
From the article:
Braingate it its name, and it was created by scientists at Brown university and already it has been used to give computer control to a 25-year-old Massachusetts paraplegic, allowing such functions as controlling the tv, his prosthetic arm and drawing shapes using the cursor. The system requires an implant of a 4mm square chip into the motor cortex, connected to the brain by 100 electrodes, each measuring the electrical signals of the cells they connect to. The signals are then calibrated by thinking of particular movements, and the computer works out the rest.
I found additional information about this project on the Brown Web site.
- Controlling Movement Through Thought Alone
- BraingateTM *: Developing a Device to Provide Motor Impaired Patients withA Novel Neural Output (1.2mb pdf)