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Researchers at UC San Francisco have a developed a brain-machine interface that may allow speech-impaired patients to “speak” through the device. The researchers have described the system as a stepping stone to neural speech prostheses. The system monitors the brain activity of a user and then converts this to natural sounding speech using a virtual vocal tract. This computer simulation includes anatomically accurate representations of a larynx, tongue, lips, and jaw. Patients can lose the ability to speak because of a variety of factors, including neurodegenerative diseases, strokes, and brain injuries. Current assistive technologies can allow certain patients to spell...

The SixthSense consists of a webcam and a pico-projector. The device can interact with the real world, each and everyday object becomes an interface.

Check out this YouTube VIDEO. It features an interface a lot like what Tom Cruise was doing in the movie, "Minority Report." The kewlest thing was manipulated NASA maps.

A new haptic device will be shown at the next SIGGRAPH. This virtual reality system, the Fingertip Digitizer, has been developed at the University of Buffalo (UB). It will interpret your hand gestures and will translate them for your PC, medical devices or computer games. According to one developer, the Fingertip Digitizer "will help bridge the gap between what a person knows and what a computer knows" and a commercial version should be available within 3 years. Read more… Here is the introduction about this new device developed at UB Virtual Reality Laboratory. UB researchers say their "Fingertip Digitizer," which...

SCIENCE AND RELIGION- AN EMERGING INTERDISCIPLINARY SUBJECT By Dr Dildar Ahmed “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” Galileo Galilei Abstract ‘Science and religion’ is an emerging interdisciplinary subject. Many institutions in the West are already engaged in research on various topics of science and religion having historical and contemporary importance and are conducting courses leading to higher degrees. There are many areas which are common between science and religion and it is realized that the interrelationship of science and...

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...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists who trained a monkey to move a mechanical arm using thought alone said on Tuesday that experiments in Parkinson's disease patients show the technique may work in humans, too. Electrodes implanted in the brains of Parkinson's disease patients transmitted signals that might someday be used to operate remote devices, the team at Duke University Medical Center reported. In 2000, Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, the neurobiologist who led the studies, made headlines when he trained a monkey to move a robotic arm using thoughts and electrodes implanted in her brain. Last October, he refined the experiment, training a...

What will computer user interfaces look like 10 years from now? If we extrapolate from current systems, it's easy to imagine a proliferation of high-resolution displays, ranging from tiny handheld or wrist-worn devices to large screens built into desks, walls and floors. Such displays will doubtless become commonplace. But I and many other computer scientists believe that a fundamentally different kind of user interface known as augmented reality will have a more profound effect on the way in which we develop and interact with future computers. Image: PAT RAWLINGS/SAIC Augmented reality (AR) refers to computer displays that add virtual...