Mental Typewriter, Will Knight, website. The Berlin Brain-Computer Interface ("mental typewriter") makes it possible to type messages onto a computer screen by mentally controlling the movement of a cursor.
I, Nanobot, Alan H. Goldstein, website. Scientists are on the verge of breaking the carbon barrier --creating artificial life and changing forever what it means to be human.
Working the Conscious Canvas: "The ability to directly alter subjective and emotional experience will make mental manipulation an art form", by George Dvorsky. We are at a new era of art, one in which developing brain technologies open the door for new forms of artistic expression in which human consciousness and subjective experience become a canvas unto themselves. Recent insight into the workings of the brain and the development of promising neurotechnologies are showing that mood organs and similar devices are theoretically feasible.
Mind May Affect Machines, by Kim Zetter, website. Researchers at Engineering Anomalies Research Program (PEAR) housed at Princeton University, have been attempting to measure the effect of human consciousness on machines since 1979.
A Case of Mistaken Identity Crisis, Matthew Syed, Times, website. People afflicted with multiple personalities reveal that the idea of the self is a fiction.
Digital Immortality-Download the Mind by 2050, Ryan, Geek Informed, website. Dr. Ian Pearson, head of the Futurology unit at BT, believes that humans will be able to download and save their consciousnesses into computers within the next 45 years.
Grey
Matter, Blue Matter, The Economist, website.
IBM and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland
are building a computer model of the brain.
Inventing our Evolution, Joel Garreau, Washington Post, website. Through technology, we are transforming our minds, memories, metabolisms, personalities and our progeny. This will radically modify what it means to be human.
Mind-reading Machine Knows What You See, New Scientist, website. It is possible to read someone’s mind by remotely measuring their brain activity, and researchers speculate that soon we will also be able to probe a person’s awareness, focus of attention, memory and movement intention.
A window on the mind of plants, Patrik Jonsson, Christian Science Monitor, website. Some scientists say plants carefully consider their environment, speculate on the future, conquer territory, and are often capable of forethought. New findings on how plants investigate and respond to their environments are part of the debate over the nature of intelligence itself.
New Skin Lets Robots Get Sensitive, Bjorn Carey, Live Science, website. Scientists are working on a type of high-tech, flexible plastic skin that has small infrared sensors embedded all over its surface. The sensors will allow a robot to feel changes in its surroundings and move accordingly.
Physists Re-create Nature’s Best Sound System, Stephanie Olsen, News, website. Scientists in the Netherlands have re-created the highly evolved sensory hairs of crickets by building similar artificial hairs. These sensors are important steps in scientific exploration which could help hearing impaired people or visualize airflow on surfaces.
Radical Evolution, Curtis Edmonds, Book Reporter, website. Review of Joel Garreau’s book that asks serious questions about the coming revolutions in genetics and technology that are radically changing human evolution --- and whether such radical changes are beneficial or possibly ultimately harmful to the very idea of humanity itself.
Computer
Users Move Themselves with the Mind, website. Gert Pfurtscheller of
Graz University of Technology in Austria has been working on a brain-computer
interface, a device that detects areas of the brain linked to movement. By thinking
about movement, volunteers have been able to move images on a screen.
Ultrasound and the Human Brain, New Scientist, website. A device for transmitting sensory data directly into the human brain awaits a patent. It fires pulses of ultrasound at the head to modify firing patterns in targeted parts of the brain, creating "sensory experiences" ranging from moving images to tastes and sounds.
Engineers Devise Invisibility Shield, Phillip Ball, Nature, website. Andrea Alu and Nader Engheta of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia say that a ‘plasmonic cover’ could render objects nearly invisible from all viewing angles by suppressing the scattering of light by resonating in tune with the illuminating light.