Wednesday, September 12, 2007

All you have to do is "think"

Last year, I was at an European Conference on technology (IST2006) where I was able to check out some interesting futuristic technologies. One of them was a special-purpose helmet that would enable people to perform some basic controls on a computer by only thinking about them.

Early this year, at another technology conference I attended a presentation about a project in the Enginnering Faculty of the University of Oporto, where quadraplegic people could control a weelchair with special face movements.

Now, it appears that these two technologies were merged, as a motorised wheelchair that moves when the operator thinks of particular words has been demonstrated by a US company. The wheelchair works by intercepting signals sent from their brain to their voice box, even when no sound is actually produced.

Check out a demo video:


Source: New Scientist Tech

1 comment:

Célia Jordão Alves said...

Será q esta tecnologia aplicada aos nossos automóveis evitaria acidentes? Ou será que exigiria de nós muito mais concentração na condução? Teríamos que conduzir sem pensar em mais nada...