It’s a device that looks like Professor Xavier’s Cerebro helmet, the weird twist? The iPhone application that it was designed for can read minds much like the fictionalized supercomputer from comic book legend.
According to the Daily Mail, an iPhone application has been developed capable of reading minds. It’s named the XWave and allows users to control objects on-screen with their minds. It also can be used to train the brain to control attention spans and levels of relaxation.
This device is apparently the latest entry in the growing market for mind-controlled games and machines. It operates via a headset attached with straps to the user’s forehead and plugs into the iPhone jack.
A state-of-the-art sensor in the device can read the user’s brainwaves through the skull, changing them into digital signals before showing them in different colors on the iPhone screen.
And when the user’s mind focuses on a specific task the graphics change, signaling the user’s level of concentration or relaxation.
PLX Devices CEO Paul Lowchareonkul claims it is only a matter of time before the brainwave centers technology entered the mainstream.
“The human brain is the most powerful, complex thing in the universe, and for the first time, we’re able to harness its amazing power and connect it to everyday technology. With the development of 3rd party apps, the potential for innovation is limitless.”
And that’s not all PLX has in store to for consumer’s brainwaves.
Amazingly, another app, called XWave Tunes gives users the opportunity to connect with each other linking them based on the type of music that most stimulates their brainwaves.
The Mail story ends by stating that PLX is working on other ways to use this technology and that they think the potential is vast and has many other applications that would be useful for people.
I know that people like me, who have followed the technology sector for a long time, realized that a system like this would eventually be adapted for use in the home. It is based off of medical equipment doctors have used to treat epilepsy and seizure patients. And the system jacks into the iPhone; it truly is amazing to live in the age of information where technology is beginning to augment man.
I’ll admit that this technology is pretty spectacular and reminds of my childhood which was full of sci-fi amazement. Back then the idea that devices like this could be imagined by humans blew my mind, to see it happening for real leaves me speechless.
I do have my doubts about the progression of this device. It will after all be connected to the iPhone, a device that unscrupulous marketers are using more and more to gather data about people. If they can find a way to get smartphone apps to secretly send Internet data about the user
, I’ll bet they’d research ways to snatch brainwave information from these new kinds of apps too.
We’ve had technology upgrades that join with and improve people’s severed limbs for a while, and now we have the first widely available system that works with the mind. Will there be a system based on this first one that eventually improves people’s minds too?
This is a really interesting development in technology with other aspects worth keeping an eye on in the future. [[iPhone]]
