Free Republic

A multi-institutional team of engineers in China has developed a new type of brain-computer interface (BCI) that can be easily slipped in and out of the ear canal. In their project, reported in the journal Nature Communications, the group set out to design and build a new kind of BCI that is less invasive than existing devices. A brain-computer interface is a device that allows communication between the brain and a computer—though to date, most such devices are one-directional. They are used to listen to brain waves for such applications as converting them to text or to electronic signals that...

BOSTON (AP) - For years, futurists have dreamed of machines that can read minds, then act on instructions as they are thought. Now, human trials are set to begin on a brain-computer interface involving implants. Cyberkinetics Inc. of Foxboro, Mass., has received Food and Drug Administration approval to begin a clinical trial in which four-square-millimeter chips will be placed beneath the skulls of paralyzed patients. If successful, the chips could allow patients to command a computer to act - merely by thinking about the instructions they wish to send. It's a small, early step in a mission to improve the...