Toyota Monday announced it has produced technology that lets users "tell" their wheelchairs which way to go using brain waves. That's the type of technology that might, in the future, be used to help people who can't communicate -- or even to help everyday office workers type documents and surf the Internet more quickly.
According to published reports in the DailyTech and other Web sites, the person in the wheelchair must don a skull cap that can read and analyze the wearer's brain signals. Those signals first go through a brain scan electroencephalograph (EEG) and then are analyzed by a computer. The person can think "forward," "backward," turn left," or "turn right" and Toyota's brain machine interface (BMI) system responds appropriately. To stop, users must puff air into one of their cheeks, where a sensor is located.
Although there are other similar systems, Toyota's appears to be the fastest, most naturally responsive. Brain-wave analysis is compiled at such a rate of speed, drivers don't notice lag time.
The Toyota system encodes the brain waves that indicate a driver wants to turn right, for example. Can it be too far off before brain waves can be encoded to determine what, for example, an autistic child with no speech ability wants to do? Perhaps verbs would be easiest to code because they are kinesthetic, but it's a start.
Once such technology becomes widespread, it could be adapted for consumer use. In the not-too-distant future, then, we could be couch potatoes, skull cap in place, no longer wondering where the remote is because we simply need to think about what channel we want to watch.
