| Show Brain Wave of the Future Joel Garreau The Washington Post WASHINGTON You slip the wireless headset on It looks like something a telemarketer would wear except the ea earpieces are actually sensors and what lo looks ks like a microphone ISa is isa a brain wave detector You place its tip against your forehead above your left eyebrow A few feet away is a pong ping-pong ball in a clear tube called the Force Trainer The idea is to use your thoughts alone as recognized by the wand on your forehead to lift the ball Your brains brain's electrical activity is translated into a signal understood by a little computer that controls a afan afan afan fan that blows the ball up the tube Levitates it As if by magic Its It's mind over matter All you have to do is concentrate On anything it doesn't matter matter The harder you concentrate the higher the ball goes A musician says he played a song in his head and focused on a particular chord change A former fonner high school tennis star focused on his mph serve One woman brought the image of a candle flame to mind The ball rose Concentrate Concentrate A sound erupts first firsta a groan then a like a Halloween ghost The ball spins slowly at first then faster Concentrate concentrate And then the ball rises i side 1 the tuDe tube Up it lifts two inches four inches a afoot afoot afoot foot You giggle and your concentration is broken the ghostly sound fades and the ball drops back into its nest with a gurgle You have just controlled a physical object with your mind Competing over mind-over- matter toys from Mattel MatteI and Uncle Milton Industries are coming corning this fall to a store near you They are the first first- computer brain brain interfaces to enter the consumer mainstream Toys but so much more They embody a dream of the ages controlling the world with your thoughts Telekinesis The stuff of the gods The question everyone has about these gizmos is whether they are parlor tricks like Magic 8 Balls or Ouija boards Even Geoff Walker a senior vice president at Mattel MatteI acknowledges that users spend the first 20 minutes stunned that it actually works Evidence in favor of them being for real is that some people are worse than others at controlling them certainly not a marketing feature Lawyers and other for example tend to have a terrible time focusing their brain brainwaves brainwaves brainwaves waves says Johnny Liu of the creator of the over mind-over-matter headset But there are those to whom controlling the device comes effortlessly and instantly as if single- single mindedness is the persons person's natural default position What happens when millions of youngsters in a notoriously generation start getting programmed by these new toys What happens when they start being rewarded for very long periods of intense concentration Nobody in the toy industry seems to know But it sure looks like parents are about to find out Now lets let's get serious with idea of telekinesis Nine years ago scientists created the worlds world's first telekinetic monkey Belle a cute little owl monkey in inthe inthe inthe the lab of Miguel at Duke University was the first to control tangible objects long distance with her thoughts How do you make a monkey telekinetic First you get her into a computer game She knows that if a light suddenly shines on her screen and she moves her joystick ck left or right to hit it she gets a drop of juice Then the researchers drill drilla a hole in her head They take a device the size of a baby aspirin out of which come many many superfine wires and lower it into Belles Belle's motor cortex the portion of the brain that plans muscle movement The object is to toline to toline toline line up each wire with an individual neuron to detect its firing Then comes the big moment in telekinesis When Belle resumes her game the scientists put the signal from her brain on the Internet and pipe it miles north to toa toa toa a robotic arm at MIT Sure enough it starts dancing like a ballerina in exactly the same fashion as Belles Belle's arm ann choreographed by bythe bythe bythe the electrical impulses sparking in Belles Belle's mind her researchers report Amid the loud celebration that erupted in Durham NC and Cambridge we could not help thinking that this was only the the- beginning of a promising journey wrote in Scientific American Indeed work is advancing rapidly Four profoundly paralyzed humans equipped with a Brain Gate implant created by the biotech firm fim have Ve- Ve demonstrated their ability with just their thoughts to check and send mail e-mail turn televisions lights and appliances on and off and control a wheelchair Monkeys equipped with controlled brain-controlled artificial arms have learned how to guide food to their mouths A monkey in lab recently controlled a humanoid robot in Japan But the most spectacular work has centered on neural control of mechanical arms hands and legs The goal of a program funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is isto isto isto to soon produce intelligent artificial limbs controlled by your nervous system that will allow you to pitch pitcha a fastball thread a needle or play playa a piano You have to dream big says Co Col Geoffrey Ling a neurologist and program manager If you dont don't dream that youre you're going to the moon you wont won't go to the moon As a reading mind-reading location your forehead has only one significant advantage Its a horrible place to get signals But that's the only place most people do not have hair says Stanley Yang chief executive of Hair is not conductive N is in the forefront of turning brain- brain computer interfaces into cheap ubiquitous consumer items Its It's selling reading brain-reading hardware and software headsets to all comers including Christmas competitors like Mattel's MatteIs 80 and Uncle Milton's Force Trainer both of which involve levitating a pong ping-pong-like ball has its sights set seton seton seton on providing wave brain-wave sensors for the automotive health 4 health health-Cade Are end nd education tion industries The he prospect for mind controlling matter dates to 1875 when Richard Caton discovered that you you could peer into the workings of the brain by detecting its electrical impulses In 1929 came the first electroencephalograph graph the EEG machine r that became the staple of science-fiction science movies All those wires and sticky pads festooning bare skulls But hospital EEG machines are expensive enormous and not not good goodat at fine control plus you have to smear conductive goop on your head Thus adaptation is no small thing They get a single dry sensor to read your bare forehead no goop no holes drilled through the skull They get the device to focus on the correct signals from that extremely noisy brain area filtering out everything else that's their big trick Its like being at a crowded party and picking out one quiet conversation says Liu Then Thep they make it its s small all light and cheap and deliver it to market The sensors you are seeing today are first generation says Yang You have to wear it The second generation can sense ense your brain waves and other signals bio from a distance Like sensors in your car seats that can go through clothes without touching you Embed the sensor in inthe inthe inthe the seat belt In the steering wheel Or embed a sensor in the headrest Yang wants the car to know if you are falling asleep Or drunk Or wishing the air conditioning would go go on or the music would play more softly He Heis Heis Heis is talking with the Japanese telephone company about Its brain lab has looked at over over mind-over-matter products he says Where we go from there is J y fig g do p controlled brain television remote controls video games race cars Steve Koenig director of industry analysis at the Consumer Electronics Association has little doubt about the high-end high professional possibilities of the over mind-over-matter market He sees the opportunities for military robot wrangling say or mastering space or undersea exploration or allowing the profoundly ill or disabled to control their surroundings He is however a skeptic about how eagerly we will embrace the toys Anybody having to wear anything is challenged in ina a lot of ways That's why you dont don't see everybody you know having a little earpiece in their ear As for the TV remote control Koenig says If to control things you have to concentrate at what point is it much easier to just grab the knob and turn the volume down Reyne Rice the toy trends specialist for the Toy Industry A Association is ismore ismore more optimistic been happening in the last couple of years is a real interest in mental gymnastics mind games and logic solving Not only for kids but adults including boomers interested in staving off To Rice over mind-over-matter technology is the next logical step She sees great potential l for games Imagine a like order law-and-order game that could us use a lie detector Or player multi-player games Whoever has the strongest mind control can take over the thing on the screen she says Mattel MatteI is aiming at to 8 year olds both girls and boys although it seems like a product that can inspire a wow from 8 to 82 says Walker the senior vice president II Un 9 is aiming a g the Force Trainer which has has' hasa a aStar aStar aT T Star Wars theme eme at those thos a aa r s' s s o still still till cant can't geL ger gel too much Luke in their lives and then at boys 6 to 11 But the industry considers 80 or pricey for a little kids kid's toy toy toy- especially in this years year's economy Rice sees the market as being older kids college students and adults who are willing to pay much more |
