We could soon control gadgets and open apps using the power of thought, according to a patent filed by Microsoft.
The company has released details of a brain control interface that decodes electrical signals from the brain to launch and operate apps and web browsers.
Using special headbands, the device could detect when someone wants to swipe, click the mouse or push a button.
The firm is taking on Facebook, who last year confirmed rumours that it is also developing a ‘mind control’ brain interface.
We could soon be able to ‘think’ our way around a computer programme without using our hands, according to a patent filed by Microsoft. Using special headbands, this device could interpret signals from the user’s brain to open and use apps using only the power of our minds
Microsoft’s patent ‘Changing an application state using neurological data’ was published with the US Patent and Trademark office earlier this month.
It decodes electrical activity in the brain – displayed as EEG readings – using sensors on the scalp.
Microsoft’s patent might be trained to read this data and work out what signals instigate certain behaviour, writes The American Genius.
Sophisticated algorithms could also learn an individual’s brain behaviour meaning each device could be tailored to an individual.
The technology could be used in video games, AR, VR, modelling software and web browsers.
‘The application state is automatically changed to align with the intended operation, as determined by received neurological user intent data, so that the intended operation is performed’, the patent reads.
‘Some embodiments relate to a computer system creating or updating a state machine, through a training process, to change the state of an application according to detected neurological data’.
Microsoft is competing with Facebook which currently has 60 engineers working on Brain Computer interface technology.
The patent Changing an application state using neurological data was filed with the US Patent and Trademark office. It decodes EEGs which can be detected using sensors on the scalp that detect electrical activity in the brain
‘We’re building further out beyond augmented reality, and that includes work around direct brain interfaces that one day will let you communicate using only your mind, although that stuff is pretty far out,’ Zuckerberg said back in April.
Zuckerberg said new phone-based applications might include creating a three-dimensional scene from a single two-dimensional photo or splattering the walls of your house with colorful (virtual) art.
The company also announced it is developing optical sensors to allow people to type at speeds of 100 words per minute simply by thinking, and radical touch interfaces that transmit information by putting pressure on skin, rather like a ‘super braille’.
Microsoft is competing with Facebook (pictured) who is said to currently have 60 engineers working on Brain Computer interface technology
The company also announced it is developing optical sensors to allow people to type at speeds of 100 words per minute simply by thinking, and radical touch interfaces that transmit information by putting pressure on skin, rather like a ‘super braille’
‘We want to create products that recognise we are both mind and body, said Regina Dugan, the head of Facebook’s secretive building 8.
‘What if you could type directly from your brain? It sounds impossible, but its closer that you might realise,’ she said.
Dugan outlined a ‘silent typing’ system, and said it could mean an end to constantly checking our phones.
‘In my entire career I’ve never seen something as powerful as the smartphone that doesn’t have unintended consequences,’ she said.
According to Dugan the system would allow users to ‘text a friend without taking out your phone, or send an email without leaving the party’.