Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
NextSense Earbuds Spy On Your Brain
A new startup called NextSense is working on earbuds that detect and record the electrical signals of your brain.
Berent and his team envision a multipurpose device that can stream music and phone calls like AirPods; boost local sound like a hearing aid; and monitor your brain to provide a window into your moods, attention, sleep patterns, and periods of depression. He also hopes to zero in on a few sizes that would fit a vast majority of people, to dispense with all the ear-scanning.
Science fiction fans will immediately think of the Babel Fish from Douglas Adam's 1979 book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.
In terms of the practical goals of the NextSense company, Philip K. Dick captured them with his cephalochromoscope or cephscope from his 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly.
Read about these other consumer devices for watching (and hacking) your own brainwaves:
Read the excellent and detailed article at Wired.
But while the immediate uses of NextSense’s earbuds are medical, Berent hopes to eventually build a mass-market brain monitor that, if enough people start using it, can generate enormous quantities of day-to-day brain performance data. The catch, of course, is that since no one has ever done that, it’s not yet obvious what most people would get out of the information. That’s also what’s exciting. “We don’t necessarily know what we would learn because we’ve never had access to that type of data,” says Emory’s Winkel.
The Babel fish is small, yellow and leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them.
(The Babel Fish diagram)
Your cephalochromoscope that cost you nine hundred dollars, that you always turn on and play when you get home - Ernie and Barris were babbling away about it.
- IfIHadGlass - I'd Make PKD's Cephscope
- Hitachi Brain Scanner Fun Toy
- EEG Headset Is Parasitic Cephscope
- Epoc Headset Brainwave Controller
- SmartCap Detects Fatigue
- Hair Brush Reads Your Mind
- XWave Apps For iPhone See Brainwaves
- Moran Cerf, When Will We Get Neuro Tech For Ourselves?
- Get Your Own 64 Channel, Dry-Electrode Brain-Computer Headset!
- Safilo Brain-Sensing Eyewear
- Wearable MRI Is Former Occulus/Facebook Exec's New Project
- New Brain Scanner Lets You Move Around
- Neurodevices For Consumers? Neuroethicists (And Philip K Dick) Say 'Caveat Emptor'
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/3/2022)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Medical ")
MouthPad Supports Head And Tongue Tracking
'The operation that had transformed half his body... had located the control switchboard in his teeth.'- Alfred Bester, 1956.
Drug Induces Hibernation-Like State In Humans
'... drugged and chilled and stowed in sleep tanks.' - Robert Heinlein, 1951.
Drug To Regenerate Teeth In Humans
'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.
Illustrating Classic Heinlein With AI
'Stasis, cold sleep, hibernation, hypothermia, reduced metabolism, call it what you will - the logistics-medicine research teams had found a way to stack people like cordwood and use them when needed.' - Robert Heinlein, 1956
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Stargate $500 Billion Investment in Artificial Intelligence
'... an artificial intelligence equal to the human.'
Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249
'Rayno folded up the microterm and tucked it back inside his jumper.'
Nano-Chainmail 2D Mechanically Interlocked Polymer
'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.'
Anker's SOLIX Solar Umbrella Portable Power
As predicted by science fiction thirty-five years ago!
Positioned Cybertrucks With Free Starlinks WiFi In LA
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.'
AI-THu Shapeshifting Transformer Home
'Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement.'
Xiaomi Self-Driving Self-Balancing Scooter
'Norman... had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems.'
Transparent 4K OLED Wireless TV From LG
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
TSA 2 - Advanced Thermosensory Stimulator Is A Dune Pain Box
'As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped...'
Humans Love Helping Other Species
'At the ringside opposite them a table had been removed to make room for a large transparent plastic capsule on wheels.'
Organic Non-Planar 3D Printing
'It makes drawings in the air following drawings...'
Your Window For Being A Tesla Optimus Remote Operator May Be Closing
'... he realized that the moving thing inside was - of course - a robot.'
Waymo Autonomous Cab Hits Autonomous Delivery Robot
'Not since the time he rewired the delivery robot...'
Amazing Wheel Shapeshifting In Real Time
'Each spoke telescopes into sections.'
Drone With Face Recognition Could Hunt You
'The spotter descends, and we think it searches the vicinity, looking for the victim’s face...'
Jizai Arms 'Free Limbs' Wearable Cyborg Arms
'Guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs. Four mechanical arms welded right onto his body. What are the odds?'
