Americans not Enthused by Germ Line Gene Editting, Brain Implants & Synthetic Blood

Many in the general public think scientific and technological innovations bring helpful change to society, but they are more concerned than excited when it comes to the potential use of emerging technologies to make people's minds sharper, their bodies stronger and healthier than ever before, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

The survey covers broad public reaction to scientific advances and examines public attitudes about the potential use of three specific emerging technologies for "human enhancement."

The nationally representative survey of more than 4,700 U.S. adults centered on public views about: gene editing that might give babies a lifetime with much reduced risk of serious disease, implantation of brain chips that potentially could give people a much improved ability to concentrate and process information, and transfusions of synthetic blood that might give people much greater speed, strength and stamina. The survey is part of a research package that also includes an analysis of focus groups and an essay summarizing experts' views on these topics.

A majority of Americans would be 'very' or 'somewhat' worried about gene editing (68%); brain chips (69%); and synthetic blood (63%), while no more than half say they would be enthusiastic about each of these developments. While some people say they would be both enthusiastic and worried, overall, concern outpaces excitement.

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DARPA's new Injectable Brain Implant

The tiny injectable machine could turn your noodle into a remote control.

The Pentagon is attempting what was, until recently, an impossible technological feat—developing a high-bandwidth neural interface that would allow people to beam data from their minds to external devices and back.

That’s right—a brain modem. One that could allow a soldier to, for example, control a drone with his mind.

This seemingly unlikely piece of technology has just gotten a lot less unlikely. On Feb. 8, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—the U.S. military’s fringe-science wing—announced the first successful tests, on animal subjects, of a tiny sensor that travels through blood vessels, lodges in the brain and records neural activity.

The so-called “stentrode,” a combination stent and electrode, is the size of a paperclip and flexible. The tiny, injectable machine—the invention of neurologist Tom Oxley and his team at the University of Melbourne in Australia—could help researchers solve one of the most vexing problems with the brain modem: how to insert a transmitter into the brain without also drilling a hole in the user’s head, a risky procedure under any circumstances.

Based on existing stents that doctors use to clean blood vessels, the stentrode includes sensors and a tiny transmitter. Entering the bloodstream via a catheter, the stentrode swims in the bloodstream.

Doctors monitor the stentrode on its journey through the circulatory system. When the device reaches the brain, the physicians command it to expand against the blood vessels’ walls and hold station. There it remains for potentially months at a time, recording and relaying the subtle electrical signals that flow from the brain to the rest of the body.

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Progress on Synthetic Telepathy

If you could eschew the telephone, and instead wear a cap that allowed you to share your thoughts with someone else, very far away, would you? It may be a moot point now, but there may come a time in the not-too-distant future when it isn't, largely due to the work of Andrea Stocco and his team at the University of Washington's Institute of Learning & Brain Sciences.

In this latest round of Stocco's research, two people were successfully able to transmit their thoughts to each other over the Internet, completing a game of questions-and-answers.

"This is the most complex brain-to-brain experiment, I think, that's been done to date in humans," Stocco said. "It uses conscious experiences through signals that are experienced visually, and it requires two people to collaborate."

As with previous experiments conducted by Stocco and his team, the experiment takes place between people in separate locations.

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Robopocalypse Report #21: The Uprising has Begun and Some Embrace Their Robotic Overlords

Welcome to the Robopocalypse Report!  

This is where I link to the interesting articles on the coming robotics revolution and its impact on our economy.  This is as profound as the industrial revolution was upon our economy and will effect us all.  Whether it flies through the air or drives itself down the street or builds your house or milks the cows, the robopocalypse will effect us all.  

Drones:

DARPA just demonstrated a robotic landing gear to allow VTOLs like helicopters to land on uneven terrain using a drone helicopter. Here's another link with video.

The LAPD detained a man who flew his drone too close to a police helicopter during a manhunt.  The helicopter had to take evasive measures to avoid being hit.

Another drone flew within 20 ft of an air force tanker plane at MacDill Air Force Base.

Senator Schumer wants to install technology to prevent drones from approaching airports, parades and other large events.  This is another variant on the electronic fence.

The Brits OTOH have developed tech to take control of drones behaving badly.

Others argue the only way to make drones avoid where they ought not go is to make them self aware.  A skynet full of diamond drones!

Imagine a world with autonomous consumer and commercial level drones.

California is increasingly using drones to watch for sharks near beaches.

Self Driving Cars:

Honda is going to test self driving cars in California.

California has posted the regulations for testing self driving cars for manufacturers.

Forbes has a history of Google's self driving car program.   Google will now be manufacturing hundreds of beta test articles of its self driving car.  Google has named a new head of its self driving car project.

The Guardian claims in 2020 all cars will be self driving cars.

Mercedes puts forward their own vision of what the future looks like in the city full of self driving cars.

Creeping towards the self driving car on normal cars, ten major auto manufacturers have agreed to put automatic emergency braking in all their new models.

Royal Truck and Equipment will be testing a self driving crash truck in Florida.

3d Printing/Additive Manufacturing:

A cancer patient has received the first 3d printed titanium sternum and ribs.The patient  was not played by Sam Worthington and operated on by

Proto Labs is adding an additive manufacturing service.

Dutch startup MX3D is planning on 3d printing bridges.

General Robotics:

Soft robots are increasingly being embraced.

AI has been coupled with a surveillance camera. What could go wrong? And where's the cake?

Speaking of things that could go wrong, a parking bot smashed up a $65k Audi.  The uprising has begun!

The NY Times discusses Uber's involvement with CMU's robotics department.

Robots have taken root already at smaller diary farms and have upped production.  Is your milk organic and robot free?  ;P

Robots are starting to be used in agriculture in Australia already.

Surgery bots are predicted to become ubiquitous in Indian hospitals.

Iron mining companies are getting significant benefits from robotics.

Some of the construction bots are discussed here.

A tadpole like endoscope swims down your gastrointestinal tract looking for cancer.

Machine Learning:

A machine learning program taught itself chess in 72 hours and can play at the International Master's Level.

Mind Machine Interface:

DARPA has succeeded in providing a near natural sense of touch using a robotic hand.

Economics:

Brynjolfsson and McAfee discuss what jobs AI cannot replace at the BBC.

On the flip side, the BBC discusses the jobs the bots will steal first.

China's industrial robotics manufacturers are reporting a huge slow down in purchases.

The agricultural bot market is projected to grow around 11% between 2014 to 2019.

Forbes has a countrary article to all the doom and gloom about the Robopocalypse.

Japan is embracing the robopocalypse due its demographics and desire not to allow immigrants.

Misc:

The US Military thinks human-machine collaboration will be key to its attempt at maintaining military technology superiority.

Robopocalypse Report #14: If the Terminator Walks in the Woods...

The Robopocalypse Report normally starts with the buzzwords of the robopocalypse, the drones.  However, today something pretty impressive came across the feeds.  Atlas, Boston Dynamics' Proto Terminator, went for a walk.  In the woods.   So let's start there.

Skip to 00:43 to see.  Here's an article to accompany.  Some people find it creepy.

 Now back to our photogenic Kardashians of the Robopocalypse, the drones.

Bezos has come out to state he sees drones being crazy common for deliveries.  Some have twisted it to say more so than mail trucks and are less than happy about it.  The mail truck is likely to be replaced.  A bot can or will be able to drive to the mailbox and drop off 24/7, 365 with little concern about overtime. 

Some are wondering if we will pick privacy or convenience when it comes to drones.  I don't think its that simple.

Boeing has patented the concept of a drone which turns into a submarine.  Considering what Sandia National Labs has been working on, I'm not sure this ought to be patentable.

Nevada researchers have been exploring whether or not drones can be useful for firefighting.  behind a paywall, sorry. 

Europeans have successfully developed the software for drones to land without the use of GPS.

The market for drones is expected to grow from $4 billion annually today to $14 billion over the next decade.

In the military side of the looming Robopocalypse, the Russians are finally embracing drones for artillery spotting with their own, smaller drones; the US MDA is looking to try the Airborne Laser again on a drone (I made the mistake of commenting)...which sounds a bit like the FD Avenger I wrote up and not too different for use than the 20 year old Raptor/Talon program they attempted but with a laser instead of missiles; and the Pentagon is planning on having 90 drones in the air at a time by 2019 while still retiring the Predator.

On to the self driving cars, some are wondering whether or not self driving cars can actually replace people.

On the other hand, drive sharing - like through Uber - has dramatically impacted the incidences of drunk driving in San Francisco.  You have to wonder what it would be like if inexpensive robo cabs were everywhere.

Auro Robotics unveiled their self driving campus shuttle prototype.

Those nefarious Koreans and Germans have developed a brain computer interface for exoskeletons.

The Australians have developed a passive exoskeleton for helping with soldiers' heavy loads.

The University of Bristol along with NTT have created a new photonic chip.  They are, of course, claiming a breakthrough.  Been hearing that for 25 years, too.

IBM claims to have a 'brain inspired' non von Neumann architecture chip called TrueNorth which can simulate "1 million programmable spiking neurons and 256 million configurable synapses." 

Army Research Lab Starting Thought Controlled Weapon Systems Research

The Army Research Laboratory is funding research that would enable troops to communicate via a cellphone or radio without uttering a sound or moving a finger.

And if researches can fully exploit brain-computer interface – a technology that already exists and has enabled paralyzed individuals to move robotic arms – with increasingly advanced and sophisticated algorithm software, it could lead to direct control of military systems by thought alone, according to Dr. Liyi Dai, program manager in the Computer Sciences Division at ARL’s Army Research Office at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

“ARL recognizes that BCI is an emerging area with a high potential for revolutionizing the way we communicate with machines and that the potential exists for larger scale real-world applications such as brain-based communication through everyday devices,” Dai said in a recent feature from the lab’s press office.

The laboratory is funding two projects as part of the goal, the release states. One is to develop a prototype system for detecting imagined speech and monitoring a user’s attention and orientation by recording brain activity in real time, it states.

The other seeks to understand physiological biomarkers of brain signals for imagined speech detection, the feature states. If successful, that would allow researchers to design computational algorithms to extract biomarkers, or features, for imagined speech detection: a way for a program to know the user’s thoughts, it states.

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Injectable Brain Implants Developed

A simple injection is now all it takes to wire up a brain. A diverse team of physicists, neuroscientists and chemists has implanted mouse brains with a rolled-up, silky mesh studded with tiny electronic devices, and shown that it unfurls to spy on and stimulate individual neurons.

The implant has the potential to unravel the workings of the mammalian brain in unprecedented detail. “I think it’s great, a very creative new approach to the problem of recording from large number of neurons in the brain,” says Rafael Yuste, director of the Neuro­technology Center at Columbia University in New York, who was not involved in the work.

If eventually shown to be safe, the soft mesh might even be used in humans to treat conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, says Charles Lieber, a chemist at Harvard University on Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led the team.

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paper link.

Brain Controlled Robotic/Prosthetic Legs Have Been in Testing for Over a Year

For a full decade, Gudmundur Olafsson was unable to move his right ankle. That's because it wasn't there. Olafsson's amputated lower leg was the delayed casualty of an accident from his childhood in Iceland, when he was hit by an oil truck. “I lived in pain for 28 years,” says Olafsson. “After 50-plus operations, I had it off.” For years after the operation he wore a Proprio Foot, a prosthetic with a motorized, battery-powered ankle, sold by the Reykjavik-based company Ossur. The Proprio is essentially a wearable robot, with algorithms and sensors that automatically adjust the angle of the foot during different points in its wearer's stride. Olafsson's ankle moved on autopilot.

But 14 months ago Ossur upgraded his hardware. Now, at age 48, Olafsson can move his right ankle by thinking about it. When the electrical impulse from his brain reaches the base of his leg, a pair of sensors embedded in his muscle tissue connect the neural dots, and wirelessly transmit that signal to the Proprio Foot. Since the command reaches the foot before the wearer's residual muscles actually contract, there's no unnatural lag between intention and action. That makes Olafsson part of a highly exclusive club. Along with David Ingvasson, a fellow Ossur tester, he's one of the only people on the planet who owns a brain-controlled bionic limb. Ossur unveiled its implanted myoelectric sensor (IMES) technology today at an event in Copenhagen, and is now preparing large-scale clinical trials, in the hopes of reaching the market in three to five years.

“The first time, to be honest, I started to cry."

This is a bigger breakthrough in the field of robotics and advanced prosthetics than it might appear. Brain-controlled bionic limbs make headlines on a regular basis, with the implication that the science has been solved, and experimental systems are already transitioning to products. But most of those devices are confined to laboratories, and many require complex surgery, such as transplanting muscle tissue or implanting electrodes in a subject's brain. These devices look like the real thing in brief, sometimes compelling video clips. But so far, prosthetics that respond to thoughts are not so much a reality as a promise.

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Caltech Greatly Improves Brain Machine Interface for Mentally Controlled Prosthetics

Neural prosthetic devices implanted in the brain's movement center, the motor cortex, can allow patients with amputations or paralysis to control the movement of a robotic limb -- one that can be either connected to or separate from the patient's own limb. However, current neuroprosthetics produce motion that is delayed and jerky -- not the smooth and seemingly automatic gestures associated with natural movement. Now, by implanting neuroprosthetics in a part of the brain that controls not the movement directly but rather our intent to move, Caltech researchers have developed a way to produce more natural and fluid motions.

In a clinical trial, the Caltech team and colleagues from Keck Medicine of USC have successfully implanted just such a device in a patient with quadriplegia, giving him the ability to perform a fluid hand-shaking gesture and even play "rock, paper, scissors" using a separate robotic arm.

The results of the trial, led by principal investigator Richard Andersen, the James G. Boswell Professor of Neuroscience, and including Caltech lab members Tyson Aflalo, Spencer Kellis, Christian Klaes, Brian Lee, Ying Shi and Kelsie Pejsa, are published in the May 22 edition of the journal Science.

"When you move your arm, you really don't think about which muscles to activate and the details of the movement -- such as lift the arm, extend the arm, grasp the cup, close the hand around the cup, and so on. Instead, you think about the goal of the movement. For example, 'I want to pick up that cup of water,'" Andersen says. "So in this trial, we were successfully able to decode these actual intents, by asking the subject to simply imagine the movement as a whole, rather than breaking it down into a myriad components."

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Noninvasive Brain Machine Interface Demonstrated for Bionic Hand

A team of researchers from the University of Houston (UH) has developed an algorithm that enabled a man whose right hand had been amputated to grasp objects using a bionic hand controlled by his thoughts. While we've seen similar accomplishments in recent years, the new technique is non-invasive, capturing brain activity via a scalp EEG.

Research developments in recent years have given amputees much cause for hope with various thought-controlled prosthetic devices. Some have relied on surgically implanted electrodes, while others make use of electrical signals from muscles (known as myoelectric control).

But Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal, a neuroscientist and engineer at UH points out that such methods have their disadvantages. Surgery, particularly neurosurgery, is a risky business, while myoelectric systems require the brain activity from muscles related to the missing limb still be intact.

In an effort to avoid these problems, UH researchers attached electrodes of a 64-channel active EEG (electroencephalogram) to the scalps of five able-bodied, right-handed men and women in their 20s. These volunteers were then tasked with picking up five different objects – a soda can, a compact disc, a credit card, a small coin and a screwdriver – each intended to illustrate a different type of grasp. The data collected data was then used to create software to decode neural activity into motor signals that reconstructed the grasping movements.

The scalp EEG was then fitted to a 56-year-old man whose right hand had been amputated and a high-tech bionic hand fitted to the remaining stump. After being told to observe and visualize himself controlling the hand, he was able to grasp the various objects using his thoughts with an 80 percent success rate.

Contreras-Vidal says a delay of 50 to 90 milliseconds between the time the signals were recorded by the EEG and when the bionic hand began to grasp indicated that the brain predicted the movement, rather than reflected it.

The researchers claim this is the first time grasping has been demonstrated using EEG-based brain-machine interface (BMI) control of a multi-fingered prosthetic hand, with Contreras-Vidal saying it could lead to the development of better prosthetic devices.

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DARPA Wants, Working on Neural Prostheses (Brain Implants)

An experimental Pentagon program has already developed two types of a highly advanced, Terminator-like prosthetic arm.

What's more, a quadriplegic woman with sensors implanted onto her brain controlled one of the robotic limbs to grab a cup, shake hands and eat a chocolate bar. She even flew an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter simulator using just her thoughts.

Now, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to expand on that cutting-edge work to build other potential breakthrough medical technologies, including a pacemaker-sized device that might someday improve the memory of troops who suffered a traumatic brain injury. Think of it as a hard drive of sorts for the brain.

"We know we need a next-generation device that doesn't exist today," said Justin Sanchez, who manages DARPA's Biological Technologies Office in Arlington, Virginia. "That's what these new programs are all about -- not only understanding the brain and these conditions, but building the hardware that enables us to address those issues. You need both."

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Jan Scheuermann is the new Clint Eastwood, Becomes First Person to fly F-35 Simulator With Just her Mind

Jan Scheuermann, a quadriplegic and the pioneering patient for an experimental Pentagon robotics program, continues to break ground in freeing the mind from the limitations of the body.

The 55-year-old mother of two in 2012 agreed to let surgeons implant electrodes on her brain to control a robotic arm. More recently, she flew an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter simulator using nothing but her thoughts, an official said.

Arati Prabhakar, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, cited the breakthrough last week at the first annual Future of War conference. The event was organized by the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C.

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How the Brain Controls Robotic Grasping Tools

Grasping an object involves a complex network of brain functions. First, visual cues are processed in specialized areas of the brain. Then, other areas of the brain use these signals to control the hands to reach for and manipulate the desired object. New findings from researchers at the University of Missouri suggest that the cerebellum, a region of the brain that has changed very little over time, may play a critical role. Findings could lead to advancements in assistive technologies benefiting the disabled.

"We live in a world of advanced technology in which a button can move a crane or open a door," said Scott Frey, professor of psychological sciences in the College of Arts and Science and director of the Brain Imaging Center at MU. "For those with disabilities, assistive technologies, such as robotic arms or sensors inserted in the brain, make it possible to accomplish actions like grasping with the press of a button or directly through brain activity; however, little is known about how the human brain adapts to these technologies. We found that the brain didn't necessarily evolve to control modern robotic arms, but rather the cerebellum, an ancient portion of our brain that has remained relatively unchanged, plays a vital role in helping us reach and grasp with these tools--often with only minimal training."

In the study, participants completed a series of ordinary reaching and grasping tasks involving colored wooden blocks. Regions of the brain were monitored by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Then, in a training session, participants were introduced to a robotic arm that performed the same reaching and grasping tasks when they pressed specific buttons. Participants were told that the next day's tasks would involve their controlling the robot remotely by video feed from within an MRI scanner.

"We found evidence that the brain is very flexible and can be rapidly conditioned to associate new consequences with a variety of movements," Frey said. "Pressing a button is a very simple act that does not naturally result in grasping. Nevertheless, after subjects learned that pressing one button would result in grasping objects with a robotic arm, this same movement resulted in a dramatically different pattern of brain activity than pressing an identical button known by them to have no effect on the robot's behavior. Localized activity within the cauliflower-shaped cerebellum, or 'small brain' sitting toward the back of the head, increased dramatically. These findings suggests that we might look to the cerebellum when seeking potential targets for brain-controlled interfaces."

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Brain to Brain Communication is Here

Steps to Brain Upgrade Implants

In a study in the journal Neuron, scientists describe a new high data-rate, low-power wireless brain sensor. The technology is designed to enable neuroscience research that cannot be accomplished with current sensors that tether subjects with cabled connections.

Experiments in the paper confirm that new capability. The results show that the technology transmitted rich, neuroscientifically meaningful signals from animal models as they slept and woke or exercised.

"We view this as a platform device for tapping into the richness of electrical signals from the brain among animal models where their neural circuit activity reflects entirely volitional and naturalistic behavior, not constrained to particular space," said Arto Nurmikko, professor of engineering affiliated with the Brown Institute for Brain Science and the paper's senior and corresponding author. "This enables new types of neuroscience experiments with vast amounts of brain data wirelessly and continuously streamed from brain microcircuits."

The custom-engineered neuroelectronic platform is composed of two elements: a 100-channel transmitter only 5 centimeters in its largest dimension and weighing only 46.1 grams, and a four-antenna receiver that looks like a home Wi-Fi router but employs sophisticated signal processing to maximize the transmitter's signal while the subject is moving around. Via a small port embedded in a subject's skull, the transmitter connects to a tiny implanted electrode array that detects the activity of scores of neurons in the cortex. The wireless transmitter is compatible with multiple types and classes of brain sensors, Nurmikko said, with a view toward future sensor development

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A Direct Brain-to-Brain Interface in Humans

A Direct Brain-to-Brain Interface in Humans

Authors:

Rao et al

Abstract:

We describe the first direct brain-to-brain interface in humans and present results from experiments involving six different subjects. Our non-invasive interface, demonstrated originally in August 2013, combines electroencephalography (EEG) for recording brain signals with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for delivering information to the brain. We illustrate our method using a visuomotor task in which two humans must cooperate through direct brain-to-brain communication to achieve a desired goal in a computer game. The brain-to-brain interface detects motor imagery in EEG signals recorded from one subject (the “sender”) and transmits this information over the internet to the motor cortex region of a second subject (the “receiver”). This allows the sender to cause a desired motor response in the receiver (a press on a touchpad) via TMS. We quantify the performance of the brain-to-brain interface in terms of the amount of information transmitted as well as the accuracies attained in (1) decoding the sender’s signals, (2) generating a motor response from the receiver upon stimulation, and (3) achieving the overall goal in the cooperative visuomotor task. Our results provide evidence for a rudimentary form of direct information transmission from one human brain to another using non-invasive means.

pop sci write up.

What is it Like to Have a Robopocalypic Brain Implant?

Jan Scheuermann is not your average experimental subject. Diagnosed with spinocerebellar degeneration, she is only able to move her head and neck. The paralysis, which began creeping over her muscles in 1996, has been devastating in many ways. Yet two years ago she seized an opportunity to turn her personal liability into an extraordinary asset for neuroscience. In 2012 Scheuermann elected to undergo brain surgery to implant two arrays of electrodes on her motor cortex, a band of tissue on the surface of the brain.

She did so as a volunteer in a multi-year study at the University of Pittsburgh to develop a better brain-computer interface. When she visits the lab, researchers hook up her brain to a robotic arm and hand, which she practices moving using her thoughts alone. The goal is to eventually allow other paralyzed individuals to regain function by wiring up their brains directly to a computer or prosthetic limb.

The electrodes in her head record the firing patterns of about 150 of her neurons. Specific patterns of neuronal activity encode her desire to perform different movements, such as swinging the arm to the left or clasping the fingers around a cup. Two thick cables relay the data from her neurons to a computer, where software can identify Scheuermann’s intentions. The computer can then issue appropriate commands to move the robotic limb.

On a typical workday, Jan Scheuermann arrives at the university around 9:15 am. Using her chin, she maneuvers her electric wheelchair into a research lab headed by neuroscientist Andrew Schwartz and settles in for a day of work. Scientific American Mind spoke to Scheuermann to learn more about her experience as a self-proclaimed “guinea pig extraordinaire.”

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WHOA! First Direct Brain to Brain Communication Demonstrated Over the Internet

In a first-of-its-kind study, an international team of neuroscientists and robotics engineers have demonstrated the viability of direct brain-to-brain communication in humans. Recently published in PLOS ONE the highly novel findings describe the successful transmission of information via the internet between the intact scalps of two human subjects – located 5,000 miles apart.

"We wanted to find out if one could communicate directly between two people by reading out the brain activity from one person and injecting brain activity into the second person, and do so across great physical distances by leveraging existing communication pathways," explains coauthor Alvaro Pascual-Leone, MD, PhD, Director of the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. "One such pathway is, of course, the internet, so our question became, 'Could we develop an experiment that would bypass the talking or typing part of internet and establish direct brain-to-brain communication between subjects located far away from each other in India and France ?'"

It turned out the answer was "yes."

link.

Hook it up to a radio or cell phone and you have telepathy, albeit artificial.

heh.  The Next Big Thing is a thinking cap.  ;)

Using Electrocorticography for Mind-Machine Interfaces

Last year, an epilepsy patient awaiting brain surgery at the renowned Johns Hopkins Hospital occupied her time with an unusual activity. While doctors and neuroscientists clustered around, she repeatedly reached toward a video screen, which showed a small orange ball on a table. As she extended her hand, a robotic arm across the room also reached forward and grasped the actual orange ball on the actual table. In terms of robotics, this was nothing fancy. What made the accomplishment remarkable was that the woman was controlling the mechanical limb with her brain waves.

The experiment in that Baltimore hospital room demonstrated a new approach in brain-machine interfaces (BMIs), which measure electrical activity from the brain and use the signal to control something. BMIs come in many shapes and sizes, but they all work fundamentally the same way: They detect the tiny voltage changes in the brain that occur when neurons fire to trigger a thought or an action, and they translate those signals into digital information that is conveyed to the machine.

To sense what’s going on in the brain, some systems use electrodes that are simply attached to the scalp to record the electroencephalographic signal. These EEG systems record from broad swaths of the brain, and the signal is hard to decipher. Other BMIs require surgically implanted electrodes that penetrate the cerebral cortex to capture the activity of individual neurons. These invasive systems provide much clearer signals, but they are obviously warranted only in extreme situations where doctors need precise information. The patient in the hospital room that day was demonstrating a third strategy that offers a compromise between those two methods. The gear in her head provided good signal quality at a lower risk by contacting—but not penetrating—the brain tissue.

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Mind Controlling Google Glass