As an expert on cutting-edge digital displays, Mary Lou Jepsen studies how to show our most creative ideas on screens. And as a brain surgery patient herself, she is driven to know more about the neural activity that underlies invention, creativity, thought. She meshes these two passions in a rather mind-blowing talk on two cutting-edge brain studies that might point to a new frontier in understanding how (and what) we think.
See this TED Show for her insights
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Could future devices read images from our brains?
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VSJ – November 2007 – Work in Progress
Council member John Ellis, FIAP is rapidly becoming the IAP’s resident futurologist. In the first of a two-part article he expands on some ideas he introduced in VSJ for March 2005.
Some time ago I wrote a series of articles on making Web sites accessible for the disabled. I finished the series with what appeared to me to be a fanciful look at a future in which people would have chips implanted in their brains to provide access to the Internet and other facilities.
Shortly after writing the articles I read two pieces on the BBC News Web site that showed I wasn’t being as imaginative as I’d thought. The first concerned a paraplegic with a matrix of electrodes inserted in the motor cortex part of his brain to allow him thought control of physical devices such as a television. The second referred to a prototype eye implant allowing visual images to be transmitted to the brain of someone suffering from macular degeneration, say. The details are athttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6368089.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4396387.stm
So I was encouraged take an even bigger leap with some wild-ish theories and unsupported conjecture!The Brain: Being possibly the most mysterious organ of the body there is a lot of work being carried out to find out how the brain, and indeed the mind, work, the latter being how we think rather than the ‘wiring’ that makes it function.
Various experiments have arrived at the point where, using technology like that described above, signals are being received by and transmitted from the brain to accomplish a number of practical tasks. Clearly, this technology is improving rapidly. Assuming it could be incorporated at source, i.e. the eye or at some interface directly in the brain, it would be a very practical solution for many people. If the power source could be generated from within the body then we could insert a chip or series of chips into the body and make a subject ‘Internet ready’, say via WiFi. And people do have a good source of energy – heat. This is already being considered for use in hospital intensive care monitoring devices to minimise cabling.
Eventually the technology will be able to interface with the brain at a lower level than the crude eye/spinal interfaces we currently have. Technology will and always has expanded to fill the need.Environmental Technology: If we have the technology, could we build a room that was wired to transmit and receive the signals being transmitted by the chips above? I think that existing WiFi networks could be expanded into a house as a concept rather than a single access point.
Could this technology be taken out further, say to a train, office, or car?
What sort of range could we create that would be effective within a particular environment that would not affect someone else’s space?
Would a human being need to have a chip implanted to effect the interface or could some other technology interact with the brain at a different level? If so what sort of technology needs to be invented and what motivation have we got to do this?
Next month, John tries to answer some of these questions. You can contact him at john@74stonelane.co.uk.
[Interesting project or development? Let us know at eo@iap.org.uk!] -
VSJ – June 2005 – Sounding Board
Council member John Ellis, FIAP wrote an article in last March’s VSJ which, he fondly imagined, described castles in the air. Here he points us at two recent reports that show that some of the castles are already drying concrete.
Following my recent fantasy foray on the use of electronics to interface with the brain and allow disabled users (or indeed any person fitted out with the right equipment) to access the Internet, I thought I would share two recent articles from the BBC News Web site.
The first is about the ability of a man to access domestic appliances by having a chip implanted in his spinal column. Matthew Nagle, 25, underwent pioneering surgery last year at the New England Sinai Hospital in Stoughton, Massachusetts. He can now control everyday objects by thought alone. The chip ‘reads his mind’ and sends the ‘thoughts’ to a computer to tun into commands. This could be a kettle, robotic hand or even a mouse. Since a mouse is really just a virtual pointer, he does not need the real thing. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4396387.stm
The second is about a method of transmitting video from a miniature camera, fitted to spectacles, to a chip in the eye that translates them into a signal the brain can interpret. The device has been designed by Professor Gislin Dagnelie at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. While the images are not presently video quality, they can only get better and human trials may begin within a year. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4411591.stm
When I began writing the original article last year I didn’t think it would turn into science fact so soon!
[Something you’d like to get off your chest? Email me (Robin Jones) at eo@iap.org.uk.] -
VSJ – March 2005 – Work in Progress
Council member John Ellis, FIAP takes us on a flight of fancy that is, perhaps, not too fanciful and potentially worrying.
Regular readers will recall my set of articles on making Web sites more accessible to the disabled. I hope they will also remember my point that careful design can, at the same time, improve the experience for the able bodied. So I thought I would take a peek into the future and see how technology aimed at the disabled might improve – or even make a culture change in – the way we all use PCs and the Internet.
While many visually impaired people have various methods to access the world of computing, it is a lot harder for those with motor problems.
Take someone like Stephen Hawking, a scientist of great note who is known world-wide for his theories of space and time, yet there he is in his chair unable to use a keyboard and mouse. Thanks to the work of many people, he does have access to computer equipment via a paddle type device that allows him to click on word/letters that are scanned across the bottom of a screen.
Other people use similar devices. For example, a camera might be fitted above the screen to monitor eye movement, detecting a blink to select the appropriate action.
So how does this help us all in the future?
Well, experiments around the world have been done in implanting electrodes into disabled people’s brains to do the same thing as the switch selectors I referred to above. Certain thoughts trigger the switch! And a word or action is selected.
In fact, my use of the word ‘thought’ is perhaps misleading. We’re really measuring the activity of a particular area of the brain, as we would, for example, with a MRI brain scan. Such activity may lead to a ‘thought’ but we can’t guarantee a one-to-one correspondence. Which is what much of the research is about.
BUT if we can then select one individual thought, we can probably select several. This would give people the ability to pick several combinations of words or characters in one go or control a mouse (in their heads). After all, only 6 mouse actions are possible – up/down, left/right, left and right mouse click. That only requires 6 individual thoughts.
The reverse problem – transferring data to the subject rather than taking commands from him or her – is also being tackled at the research level. For instance, the Dobelle Artificial Vision System has been used experimentally in the field for over two years now. See www.seeingwithsound.com/etumble.htm for an interview with a user.
Now, if we can link a blind person to the sighted world via a camera and a brain implant, it doesn’t matter where the camera signals are coming from. They could just as well be from the camera on somebody else’s 3G phone. Or direct from a Web site. We are, after all, looking a little into the future, so everyone will have broadband Internet access from their cell phones won’t they? Which means not just that someone with this technology has access to the network but that they become PART OF the network. WOW!
Now we enter an area of unintended consequences. We have, with excellent motives, experimented on people. They need the access and we have to have test subjects. But now we have the technology to plug anyone into the system. It will probably require surgery but some people will want it, at any cost. Military and intelligence people would be prime users but other data junkies would also want access.
This then leads to a whole set of ethical and moral questions. That of unnecessary surgery I shall leave to others. Let’s think instead of the IT implications. All the current Internet woes – spamming, URL spoofing, pop-ups, trojans and viruses – apply, not to the user’s computer, but to the user him (or her) self. Would such malign activity be assault in the legal sense? I suggest it should be. It is a type of assault that even now we are all suffering, whether being redirected to unsuitable sites, or to a site that hijacks your browser so that every time you go to a new page you are automatically routed to one of the hijacker’s sites.
This type of assault is becoming more common now, so the future does not look bright unless we grow up or effective legislation is brought in and enforced world wide. Given the current squabbling between the US and the EU – and even between EU members – over software patents, the idea that such legislation could be enacted, let alone enforced, seems fanciful.
More worryingly still, the term ‘virus’ might revert to its original meaning. Natural viruses that attack the brain are often fatal. Perhaps an electronic equivalent would be too. So would that be murder and how easy would it be to prosecute an offender?
What about the enforcement of existing Internet legislation? Your computer will be confiscated if it stores certain kinds of data, such as pornographic child images. Of course, a prosecution can still follow such a transgression but, if ‘the computer’ is actually your brain, what precisely would ‘confiscation’ mean? The terms ‘brainwashing’ and ‘thought police’ spring inexorably to mind.
So here we are. Scientists are working on ways to improve the lot of those people who need to have access to the world of computing. We probably have most of the technology already and just need to get it to work.
The question is, of course, will we be capable of using it safely, when we cannot even use it now without corrupting it?You can contact John at john.ellis@wellis-technology.co.uk
[Interesting project or development? Let us know at eo@iap.org.uk!]