From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 95 17:29:04 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Noise: anyone experience with brain waves input devices (IBVA,...)
Message-ID: <199510080030.UAA08506@pipe4.nyc.pipeline.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


We've sent the full version of the article below to Laurent.  
Anybody else want it, send a MIN_wav.

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   [Excerpts]

   Financial Times, September 27, 1995

   When it's all in the mind


   At the department of medical informatics at Graz
   University of Technology in Austria, Gert Pfurtscheller is
   working on a project that could result in
   thought-controlled devices.

   Stephen Roberts, a researcher at the electrical and
   electronics engineering department at Imperial College
   London, has worked with Pfurtscheller's team. He hopes to
   improve the signal classification accuracy by using
   artificial neural networks, computer-based systems designed
   to mimic the way the human brain works.

   Roberts's work is part of an EU research programme called
   Anndee (Artificial Neural Networks for Diagnosis and
   Enhancement of EEG) which involves around 30 researchers in
   a dozen European universities.

   The Consciousness Research laboratory at the University of
   Nevada is pursing a more controversial line of research
   into psychic phenomena or, as its director, Dean Radin,
   prefers to call it, Direct Man/Machine Interaction (DMMI).
   A number of Japanese companies including NEC and
   Matsushita, have also conducted research into DMMI. Radin
   believes that in 20 to 50 years' time, it will be possible
   to use DMMI to operate devices.

   The technology company The Other 90 Per Cent, based in
   Sausalito, California, has developed MindDrive, a computer
   games system whose programs are controlled by thought.

   MindDrive is designed to work with most IBM-compatible
   personal computers. A console, which analyses the user's
   brain waves, plugs into the back of the computer. Users
   wear a sensor sleeve over their index finger. At present,
   the system can only be used to move a cursor up and down.
   MindDrive will be on sale in the US early next year. The
   console will cost between $100 (65 pounds) to $200, and
   MindDrive games some of which will enable users to create
   music or draw on a computer screen by thought, will cost
   around $30 to $40 each.