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Hitachi Introduces Mind Control Device
"We are thinking of various kinds of applications. Locked-in patients can speak to other people by using this kind of brain machine interface."
- Hideaki Koizumi, project leader
Japan - Hitachi has developed a technology to allow users to control devices by thinking. The system is currently being used to move a toy train back and forth, but the company and other manufacturers see a future for it in TV remote controls, cars and artificial limbs. A key advantage to Hitachi's technology is that sensors don't have to physically enter the brain.
At his prompting, a reporter did simple calculations in her head, and the train sprang forward -- apparently indicating activity in the brain's frontal cortex, which handles problem solving. Activating that region of the brain -- by doing sums or singing a song -- is what makes the train run, according to Utsugi. When one stops the calculations, the train stops, too.