Mind Tweets
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Science, Technology, Tweets
O.k., this story is just cool:
Earlier this month, Wilson thought of a tweet (the name for a post to the social networking site) and poof, his computer read his mind and sent the darn thing. At just 23 characters, Wilson’s message, “using EEG to send tweet,” was done with a computer setup that interprets brain waves.
Well, it wasn’t that simple. You have to be hooked to a device which reads brain waves and stare at a screen containing the alphabet:
All the letters come up, and each one of them flashes individually … And what your brain does is, if you’re looking at the ‘R’ on the screen and all the other letters are flashing, nothing happens. But when the ‘R’ flashes, your brain says, “Hey, wait a minute. Something’s different about what I was just paying attention to.†And you see a momentary change in brain activity.
And so the computer knows that’s the letter you want.
Sure, it’s hardly a practical way to write. But it does have exciting applications for those suffering from total paralysis. And, come on, tweeting with your mind? Welcome to the twenty-first century.
This entry was posted on Friday, April 24th, 2009 and is filed under Science, Technology, Tweets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:53 am
That’s awesome.
Lame comment, but still.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I have tried out this technology, and unless you very carefully control it there are some, um, embarrassing drawbacks.
So I want to take this opportunity to say to Ms. Jolie, to the girl on Chuck, and to that hostess at P.F. Chang’s that I apologize for the content of my recent Tweets.