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IBM and Xerox predict brain-controlled apps will head to smartphones
Researchers from the two tech giants claim new headsets and more powerful phones are paving the way for brain-controlled smartphone apps.
Fancy calling your friends using the power of thought? One day there could be an app for that.
Across the world researchers are developing smartphone apps that are controlled using brainwaves, according to an IBM and Xerox paper summarising the state-of-the-art in Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI).
Applications include brain-driven software for dialling numbers, as well as for messaging and calling contacts.
Rather than relying on a touchscreen tap to trigger an action, such software listens for specific patterns of brain activity. These peaks in electrical activity in the brain, known as P300 signals, are detected by a Electroencephalogram (EEG) that is worn on the user's head.
An Emotiv EEG headset. Image: Emotiv
Brain-controlled software has been made more feasible by the development of lightweight EEG readers that can communicate with phones wirelessly, such as the Emotiv headset.
The problem facing BCI apps is accuracy. The IBM and Xerox paper highlights the Neurophone, a brain-controlled system developed at Cornell University that allows users to call contacts using an Emotiv headset and an iPhone.
Neurophone works by flashing images of each of the user's contacts in turn, detecting the P300 signal when the desired contact flashes and then making the call.
The system's ability to detect the correct contact is described as promising but less reliable than a wink-controlled interface for the device - which managed 92 to 95 percent accuracy.
Similarly, a brain-controlled app that allows users to write Chinese language messages using a virtual keyboard achieved a peak accuracy of just over 80 percent. However, in tests the average accuracy of the system, which used the Neuroscan QuickCap to measure brainwaves, was just under 70 percent.
Accuracy of systems that detect P300 signals falls when users are performing physical tasks that reduce their focus. To bring accuracy levels up, researchers suggest that brain-control signals could be augmented by other data, such as head and eye tracking. The choice presented to the user could also be refined - for example the list of suggested contacts to call could be restricted to those dialled most frequently.
The paper concludes on an optimistic note: "The use of BCI for mobile holds promise, as it would be useful for developing both assistive and general entertainment technology for the evolving mobile user.
"Developments in the fields of computational neurology, signal processing, machine learning coupled with the increasing availability of computational power on the mobile device along with cloud storage and processing paves the way for development of more BCI-based mobile applications for the ordinary user."
Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-and-xerox-predict-brain-controlled-apps-will-head-to-smartphones/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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