mind

Toyota thinks up mind-reading wheelchair

Last week, we told you about Mindflex, a Mattel toy that lets players move objects with their brains. This week comes word that the same technology is making its way into a more functional application--a wheelchair that users can maneuver with thought alone.

Toyota has developed the wheelchair in collaboration with researchers in Japan. The system analyzes brain wave data using signal-processing technology and delivers neuro-feedback to the driver.

Brain wave-detecting technology, or electroencephalography (EEG), isn't new. In layman's terms, a device, usually a cap wired with sensors, detects a person's brain waves. That information is analyzed by a computer and applied to the device in question. Scientists have pursued the technology for decades, but have had difficulty achieving short response times, explains the Associated Press.

Toyota's mind-controlled wheelchair, however, has what appears to be the quickest response time yet: 125 milliseconds, or 125 thousandths of a second. The user can almost instantly steer right, left, and forward. To stop, the person in the chair must puff up a cheek, a motion that's then detected by the headpiece.

Because of this quick response time, plans are under way to turn the wheelchair into a commercial health care product. The most practical use would be for rehabilitation patients who have been paralyzed, suffered a stroke, or have other conditions that hinder their muscle control. So far, the research has centered on brain waves related to imaginary hand and foot control. However, Toyota hopes the system could ultimately be applied to brain waves generated by emotions. … Read more

Moving objects with Mattel's brainwave-reading Mindflex

First off, let me say I've always wanted to make things move with my mind--at least, some small amount of levitation, like, say, lifting a car through the air like Yoda lifted Luke Skywalker's X-Wing. "Star Wars" has played no small part in that fantasy. Oh, wait, did I say fantasy?

Mattel is releasing a toy this holiday that actually lets people raise and lower things with their mind. Well, make that one thing: a blue foam ball.

Obviously, when Mattel reps called CNET asking for a meeting, we quickly ushered them in. We'd heard about this product at CES and in other applications in the past, including the Swedish Mindball (no, we're not making that up). But Mattel's desire to bring this to the masses is admirable, and as we were soon to find out, bizarre. Look above to see the somewhat embarrassing video if you have any doubts.

Like something dropped in out of a late-'70s science fiction movie, Mindflex comes in two parts: a stark white-and-blue plastic obstacle course for a series of small foam balls, and a strange wireless headset/headband. The parts were unloaded from a shopping bag here at our CNET Labs, and quickly assembled. The obstacle course looks almost like a future version of the old kinetic board game, Mouse Trap. Except, as we said, this one's mind-controlled.

Mattel's representatives showed how Mindflex worked with a demonstration before throwing me into amateur mind control, raising and lowering the blue ball through a series of plastic hoops and tunnels.

Mindflex announces the start of challenges (with a straight-from-Epcot robotic female voice), and then players can register their successful moves by pressing buttons on the front of the machine. A large knob turns the motorized fan around the circular track, carrying the ball around the mini-course.

The brain control part comes in when raising and lowering the ball (activating and deactivating the fan), which is all triggered via what the headset is reading from my little brain. To be specific, the control is done digitally: the headband senses concentration and relaxation, and raises and lowers the ball accordingly. Then, it was my turn. … Read more

Do I look ugly in this open-source license?

A bad economy is good for open source, goes the increasingly conventional wisdom. However, while it's undoubtedly a good time to be in the market with a low-cost, high-value alternative to proprietary software, there are tell-tale signs that the recession isn't blessing all open-source companies equally.

For example, at the Enterprise 2.0 conference on Tuesday Socialtext founder Ross Mayfield declared, in the words of a conference attendee via Twitter, that Socialtext's first quarter "sucked" and that its "pipeline collapsed." Socialtext, once described as a highflier in a "sizzling market," has … Read more

Joomla! turns 10,000,000 and other news

I thought of just Tweeting a few of these news bits, but some deserve to be blogged. Alas! I lack the time today but....

Joomla has surpassed 10,000,000 downloads. It's hard to describe just how impressive this is, and particularly given the fact that these have come in the past four years, and after a fractious fork from Mambo. The University of Southern Mississippi and the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate have launched the Homeland Open Security Technology (HOST) program, along with Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) and the U.S. Navy, … Read more

Project management system

Mindjet MindManager is a unique program aimed at business people keeping track of complicated projects with objectives that change on the fly. While this program offers users a chance to streamline their world, it is not something people can leap directly into and operate.

This program's main objective is project management. The goal is to provide a free-flowing chart, making even the most complex goals visible. This is accomplished through a flexible set of tools to map agendas, priorities, people working on the project, deadlines, and more, all with the ability to update and change.

MindManager is a complicated … Read more

Honda thinks up mind-controlled robots

We're not just moving toward the day when robots can do everything for us. We're apparently moving toward the day when we can just think about what we want done, and get it (almost) presto.

Japan's Honda Research Institute and precision-equipment manufacturer Shimadzu on Tuesday demonstrated a rather mind-boggling technology that lets humans control a bot through thought alone--thus taking the pesky button pressing, voice commands, and remote controls out of the equation.

But don't start trying to telepath your Scooba into writing your doctoral thesis just yet. For now, researchers are focusing on getting the … Read more

Four undiscovered sites to use when investing

Sure, the economy is in bad shape. Investing now can be dangerous. But that doesn't mean you should be scared; it's also a time of opportunity. There are companies in the Market right now that are worth investing in and thanks to the recession, shares in many of them can be acquired at a discount.

Finding those companies isn't always easy. You can go to sites like Yahoo Finance or Bloomberg to find data, but there are also some smaller, yet useful services that provide different perspectives.

Covestor

Sometimes, especially when you're new to investing, investing … Read more

Ludacris gets down with Monster (and me) at CES 2009

Excuse me a moment while I brush the stars out of my eyes. I just spent the better part of my lunch hour chilling with a bunch of Monster executives and rapper Ludacris, who creates some of my favorite workout-friendly and anger-releasing tracks. OK, so maybe I only spent 5 minutes one-on-one with the guy, but it was enough to ascertain that he's not only a talented artist, but also an exceedingly nice and polite guy. He also has no idea what an MP3 player is. Well, now he does. But when I asked him what MP3 player he … Read more

Featured Freeware: FreeMind

Like all mind maps, FreeMind for Windows and Mac gives you the flexibility to organize thoughts on a page as they connect to each other and to the larger picture. After all, not all minds reason in subheadings and bullet points. You shape, place, and name that master idea--called the root node in FreeMind--then create child or sibling spokes that relate to it.

FreeMind encompasses a fine range of features, including scads of icons and color formatting options to help you visually organize concepts. It also supports hyperlinks, which allow you to link Web sites and even documents to a … Read more

Mind maps: See a different way to think

When you're wedged next to someone at a conference, you can't help noticing their business from the corner of your eye. That's how I saw that my seat mate at last week's BlackBerry Developer Conference was using FreeMind (for Windows and Mac) to take notes on the talk.

I've looked at the freeware application FreeMind before, but had never seen it in the wild. I have to admit, compared with my two pages of linear notes organized primarily by bold text and a lot of paragraph spaces, my neighbor's mind map looked elegant and … Read more