Brain sensing technology is definitely one of the most futuristic and long-awaited technology ever. People have been fantasizing of a time where you can control computers and robots with your mind, or police having the ability to read minds for a long time. These times are still yet to come, but with technology moving so fast, it can’t be too long. For now, we have minor brain sensing products, including Muse, a brain sensing stress tamer.
The Headband
Muse, shown off at the CES 2014, is a headband. But not a normal headband, obviously. On the underside of the band, there are sensors that can take in your brainwaves, sort them out, and then diagnose whether you are relaxed, stressed focused and more. Just with this data, you can help yourself. But Muse wanted to make this a full experience, not just a data collector. So they paired their device with an app.
To start, the Muse app takes in your data and allows you to look at it in charts and other helpful ways. But, in a way you couldn’t do by yourself, it gives you mini-games, utilizing your Muse, that help strengthen your focus and relax you when you’re stressed. If you use these games, over time, you could work more efficiently and hopefully make your life better.
A Sample App Screenshot
That is just a hope, though. Many products, especially new ones, don’t deliver like they’re supposed to. The software is too slow, it breaks, it’s ugly (in Pebbles case) or another problem like that. I know it’s not ugly, since we can see the close-to-final product, but the if the software or the sensibility is off, the whole thing could come crashing down. Still, it has worked at the demos and it worked at the CES, so I have high hopes for this one. We’ll just have to wait and see. Or think, for that matter. Wait and think.
Passwords are the key to our information security in the 21st century. Whether it is your phone’s password or your social security number, if someone gets a hold of it, it’s bad news. So, whenever we make a password, we (hopefully) try to make it as secret as possible. But, we are humans, and we forget. So we do something *nearly* secret, like the last four numbers of an old phone number, and think we are fine. But we aren’t. By using old White Pages or online sources, hackers can often get the information they need. We also don’t write down our passwords, for the same reason. How do we get around our security conundrum? Well, biometrics is coming to the rescue again by bringing NeuroSky Mindset to the table.
It doesn’t look like much, does it? Just a pair of headphones with a microphone curiously placed high on your head. But, don’t judge a book by its cover. That microphone is actually a electroencephalogram (EGG) sensor. It can sense your brainwaves, meditation level, attention level and much more. The Mindset is not just for sensing brainwaves, though. It has a microphone, so it is also good for games, research, and other microphone needing applications. It is also useful for developers, and at a cheap $200, it’s a pretty good deal.
An Early EGG
So how does this help with the password situation? Well, a team of researchers at the University Of Berkley recently designed and tested a hyped-up Mindset that reads what you are thinking/imagining. It may sound creepy, but it is great news for people with bad memories. The developers were afraid it wasn’t powerful enough, but when they tested it, they found out it work to a surprisingly low 1% error rate.
A Guy Testing Out Pass-Thoughts
Using a Berkley Mindset is very simple. All you have to do is set up a “password,” they found imagining singing a song or counting colored shapes worked the best, and imagine that password whenever you want to log in to a phone or computer. They call these **pass-thoughts**. In terms of product integration into phones or Web applications, the system still has long way to go. But pass-thoughts are a big step forward, and potentially a new advance in information security. And I have to admit, they don’t even look half bad. For all its possible uses, the Berkley’s pass-thoughts for Mindset will hopefully make it’s way into the product landscape.
The trouble with having a cat is interpreting what mood it’s in. It’s hard to tell whether it is happy, or you touch it and it rips your arm off. Usually, you can tell its mood by its ears. The designers of Necomimi wanted to bring that to humans.
Necomimi is a headset that shows your emotions through cat ears. If you are focused, the ears will spring up, if you are interested, the ears will move side to side, and if you are relaxed, the ears will go down. All these motions are part of the complex goal to help you be able to better comunicate your emotions without talking. And what a better way to do it than cat ears.
In case you don’t fancy Necomimi’s standard white ears, The company came out with alternatives that you can easily replace. For instance, if you are feeling particularly evil, you could get the devil horns, which could also double as a halloween costume. Still, Necomimi is more of a fun party accessory because you would look absolutely ridiculous wearing one of them out in public. But, even though it is a fun, somewhat ridiculous headset, it uses a rather sophisticated technology, developed by NeuroSky.
How does Necomimi work? Glad you asked. Necomimi uses the little microphone-looking sensor on your forehead to take in your brainwaves, and translate them into ear motion. It works because your brain’s neurons give off electrical charges when they work. All the headset does is convert those signals into ear motions. Still, that’s pretty complicated.
Necomimi is not just a cool accessory, it is also a good developer tool. For instance, Ruggero Scorcioni designed a system that reads if you are focused or not, and blocks calls if you are busy, called “Good Times”. Good Times are basically a Necomimi headset with a little bit of extra coding put in. Even though Good Times isn’t really practical, you can still see that the possibilities are endless (including that you just wear the headset for fun).
TOTW: Google's Project Ara Modular Phone May Be The Future Of SmartphonesOctober 30, 2014
