‘brain-to-brain communication’ achieved

[n2doc]

Scientists hail a thoughtful future with ‘brain-to-brain communication’
Murad Ahmed, Technology Reporter

It may become possible after claims by British scientists that they have created a system that allows “brain-to-brain communication”, sending messages formed by one person’s brain signals though an internet connection to another person’s brain many miles away.

Christopher James, who worked with colleagues at the University of Southampton, said that his experiments were “the first baby steps” towards technologies that would allow people instantly to send thoughts, words, and images directly into the minds of others.

“This could be useful for those people who are locked into their bodies, who can’t speak, can’t even blink,” Dr James said.

Others have hailed it as the future of the internet, a new way to communicate without the need for keyboards, telephones or even mouths. A decent broadband connection, however, would be essential.

Dr James admitted that we were a long way away from this thoughtful but speechless future. Currently, only a series of binary digits — a sequence of zeros and ones — can be sent between brains.

During the transmission two people are hooked up to electrodes that measure activity in specific parts of the brain. The first person generates a series of zeros and ones, imagining moving their left arm for zero and right arm for one.

more:

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6875197.ece

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Cool. I want to be the puppeteer though. I'd dislike being the marionette. n/t

[Orrex]

21. I totally made you say that. With my mind.

Excellent.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. hate to project the thought of a pitcher filled with cold water,

but will anyone stop to think what a Bush Cheney administration would have done with this technology?

[LiberalEsto]

3. I can't WAIT to send a huge migraine

to every rightwing republican

:evilgrin:

[eShirl]

4. hopefully they will outlaw spam by then

[ChairmanAgnostic]

15. uh uh. too easy to confuse with GOP political ads.

[bananas]

5. tete-a-tete

[liberal N proud]

6. The Men Who Stare At Goats

[Q3JR4]

7. Computers can be hacked...

:scared:

Q3JR4.

[Ichingcarpenter]

8. Captain Pike will now be able to talk to Spock

vs...... beep..... or beep beep.

Amazing stuff

[Locrian]

10. "Captain Pike will now be able to talk to Spock"

"Captain Pike will now be able to talk to Spock" - you know I never got that.

They had warp drive, transporters, photon torpedoes - and poor Captn Pike had a "yes/ no" beep to communicate! What did Starfleet have a republican VA insurance plan?

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. Dr. McCoy was the dumbest Doctors of the 23 century

He's dead Jim.

Remember 'Operation Annihilate' McCoy couldn't figure out the light spectrum and blinded Spock. Medicine really never caught up with the rest of the series.

Still the news is interesting.

[tridim]

9. Lots of potential for evil in this one.

But everyone knew it was just a matter of time.

Can you imagine millions of teabaggers and freepers running around with Rush's or Beck's daily bullshit beamed straight into their brains? :scared:

Gives new meaning to the word "Dittohead".

And then there's the porn.

[Lochloosa]

12. Drop a hit together. I'll show you all about "brain to brain communication"

My brother and me will blow your mind.

[HamdenRice]

13. It's called writing, typing and reading

:rofl:

I realize what they're saying, but when you think of it, the already existing system of brain to brain messages is pretty awsome.

[Mixopterus]

16. But developments in this area

Would render language more or less obsolete in time, and would provide the basis for a truly global language.

What if in two thousand years time all humans had mandatory implants that would enable direct lines of communication to one another, with verbal communication relegated to a simple hard and fast language to serve as an accessory to the primary method of direct thought transfer, or for emergencies? The possible ramifications of direct thought transfer at distance and in real time would be as dramatic as the first written language systems.

[eppur_se_muova]

19. Especially when reading allows you to commune with the dead.

Just because someone has been dead a few centuries doesn't mean they can't share their thoughts.

[quiet.american]

14. Gives a whole to meaning to the phrase "get outta my head!" nt

[Mixopterus]

17. This is great news

I've been waiting for something like this to develop for years now.

[Posteritatis]

18. I'm still waiting for my brain-to-Photoshop interface, dammit. (nt)

[sakabatou]

20. I welcome Motoko Kusanagi into a possible future.

[Odin2005]

22. This would be wonderful for the non-verbal disabled.