Telepathy on the Horizon: New Interface Allows Brain-to-Brain Communication

Why not leave the signal in binary to begin with? This is still brain-computer communication; it just uses another brain to get the information to the COMPUTER.

You're not thinking far enough. Yes the reciever brain is used to send the signal to another computer, BUT if that second computer were, say, an Implant, designed to decode and then recode recieved data into brainwaves, then bing bang bong, you have telepathy.

Ex:

A has thought, thought goes through A's implant, is broadcast to B's implant, B's implant decodes info, then recodes it to make B's brain understand it.

It's far off, but with the inception of Nanotech, it's not that far off.

This is friggin awesome. Bye bye cell phones. :)

~S

or just decode the info into a augmented reality display chip attached to your visual cortex. text message by brain.

It is not telepathy because the signal is generated when the eyes attached to brain 2 SEE the LED meaning 0 or 1. Thats the same as saying that me typing this to you is brain to brain communication because the idea come from my brain, I wrote it down, you are reading it, and now its in your brain.

Meyaht:

Don't forget, this is the first generation. True that you have to use lights to transmit the signal, but that will all be reduced and rebuilt into a wireless signal. The fact that the computer can read things useing a human brain as it's filter is really the point they are trying to make.

The first generation of ANY electronic device always sux. Look at the Ipod for gods sake.

~S

From the article:

The differences in the light patterns are too subtle for the human eye to detect, but using human optics as a conduit, the computer can extract the patterns in the light and decode the message.

How does this even make sense? If the decoding done at the receiver is based on brain activity caused by viewing the flashing light patterns, then the patterns are clearly not too subtle for the human eye to detect. If that sentence were indeed true, this little demonstration would fail. No doubt those flashing patterns were designed to be highly differentiable in the EEG space.

@ Ailurophile:

The system is just using the eye as a conduit into the visual cortex which is where the signal is being read by the EEG and converted. The differences in light are probably beyond most people's seeing ability but it would sure create different spikes of activity in the cortex itself - thus the success of the experiment.

@ Ailurophile: you're right, the article should have read "The differences in the light patterns are too subtle for the human *brain* to detect"

@seatellite: this isn't 1st gen brain-to-brain communication,there is still NO way of getting the information from the computer to the second brain except through normal means (i.e. it appearing on a screen). It won't be the 1st gen brain-to-brain communication until there is some way of doing this. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING new here.
And, again, why not just leave the signal in binary to start with -- instead of decoding it, then recoding it back into binary?!

Yes the reciever brain is used to send the signal to another computer, BUT if that second computer were, say, an Implant, designed to decode and then recode recieved data into brainwaves, then bing bang bong, you have telepathy.

www.lipoaspiracao.org

1) Captain Pike reference

2) Imagine dream recorders

as our uplinks and interfaces get smaller and more efficient, this crude proof of concept will begin to take on more powerful apps, and I see the birth of enhancement industries like Johnny Mnemonic, where point to point transmission is no longer safe for trade secrets and the like, as well as the obvious medical monitoring, and human comptroller functions. Market trading would be upgraded. Military apps would be near limitless. it would give multitasking a new meaning, 'cause we b psyborgs. of course then, as now, raw speed and runlevels would still appear to be the only chance at security, because if a device can be detected, it can be sampled, and compromised. then there is the impact on our society of a near flawless recall majority. wonder what it would do to a person's creativity after a while. still, a true milestone. and very cool.

can you imagine the reigning international grandmaster of chess changing hands a hundred thousand times a year?