Why use your hands to type? All you need is a brain.

[Doodle]

http://www.livescience.com/technology/090422-mind-reading-twitter.html

Twitter messages are so short — a 140-character limit — that you have to really think about what you want to say.

For Adam Wilson, thinking is all he has to do.

Earlier this month, Wilson thought of a tweet (the name for a post to the social networking site) and poof, his computer read his mind and sent the darn thing. At just 23 characters, Wilson's message, "using EEG to send tweet," was done with a computer setup that interprets brain waves.

The technology could one day help patients who otherwise can't communicate finally talk to the outside world. Among them are people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), brain-stem stroke or high spinal cord injury.

Step forward

Other mind-reading devices have been developed recently. Other research has suggested brain activity could be monitored before decisions are made, perhaps with a mind-reading hat that would predict what we'll do. One shines near-infrared light into the noggin to glean thoughts.

And some brain-computer interface systems employ an electrode-studded cap wired to a computer to detect electrical signals in the brain and translate them into physical actions, such as moving a cursor on a screen.

Wilson and his colleagues wanted more.

"We started thinking that moving a cursor on a screen is a good scientific exercise," said Justin Williams, a University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor of biomedical engineering and Wilson's adviser. "But when we talk to people who have locked-in syndrome or a spinal-cord injury, their No. 1 concern is communication."

In collaboration with research Gerwin Schalk and colleagues at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, N.Y., Williams and Wilson developed an interface that involves a keyboard displayed on a computer screen. Here's how it works:

"All the letters come up, and each one of them flashes individually," Williams explained. "And what your brain does is, if you're looking at the 'R' on the screen and all the other letters are flashing, nothing happens. But when the 'R' flashes, your brain says, 'Hey, wait a minute. Something's different about what I was just paying attention to.' And you see a momentary change in brain activity."

Like texting

Wilson, who used the interface to post the Twitter update, likens it to texting on a cell phone.

"You have to press a button four times to get the character you want," he said of texting. "So this is kind of a slow process at first."

However, as with texting, users improve as they practice using the interface. "I've seen people do up to eight characters per minute," Wilson said.

The micro-blogging Twitter site, with its basis in very short messages, fits locked-in users' capabilities, Williams said. Tweets are displayed on a user's profile page and delivered to other Twitter users who have signed up to receive them.

"So someone could simply tell family and friends how they're feeling today," Williams said. "People at the other end can be following their thread and never know that the person is disabled. That would really be an enabling type of communication means for those people, and I think it would make them feel, in the online world, that they're not that much different from everybody else. That's why we did these things."

Funding for the project came from the university, the National Institutes of Health and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

This is cool. It's good for people who no longer can talk or communicate anymore, too. That's always nice.
The only downside it seems is the speed. Up to eight characters per minute? I guess for short messages it's good, but it would take a while for other things.

[Mario583]

Tl;dr
Using hands to type is  WAY MORE EFFICENT then thinking of words and letting your brain tell them to your computer to type it in 8 CPM :/

I would be done with a sentence then have the comp type it in 8 Char Per Min.

[Eizweir]

Reminds me of the recent House episode...

[Kilroy]

Cool, but useless as of now.

Also, I declare Doodle the Newsbringer of NSFCD.

[Zovistograt]

Tl;dr
Using hands to type is  WAY MORE EFFICENT then thinking of words and letting your brain tell them to your computer to type it in 8 CPM :/

I would be done with a sentence then have the comp type it in 8 Char Per Min.

But this would be for paralytics who can't type.  It's not entirely new, but I think this is the most real control I've heard of in a while.  I remember seeing something a few years ago where you could move a cursor and draw in MS Paint with similar technology, but now that typing's here it's very promising.  I hope that 8 CPM goes up exponentially with better technology.

[Friendly Hostile]

Tl;dr
Using hands to type is  WAY MORE EFFICENT then thinking of words and letting your brain tell them to your computer to type it in 8 CPM :/

I would be done with a sentence then have the comp type it in 8 Char Per Min.

Unless you suddenly become a paralyzed or sent into a coma (we can only hope) I doubt you'll be using this technology anywhere in the near future.  This is a great discovery for people who have no means to communicate, not a whiny teenager that has fully functioning limbs and speaking capabilities.

[Silverhawk79]

Every single one of your threads is a news thread.
WHY IS THIS

[えっちーせんぱい]

Sounds like the old internet.

[Kilroy]

Every single one of your threads is a news thread.
WHY IS THIS

Make doodle his own rank, Newsbringer.

[The Seventh]

http://www.livescience.com/technology/090422-mind-reading-twitter.html

Twitter messages are so short — a 140-character limit — that you have to really think about what you want to say.

For Adam Wilson, thinking is all he has to do.

Earlier this month, Wilson thought of a tweet (the name for a post to the social networking site) and poof, his computer read his mind and sent the darn thing. At just 23 characters, Wilson's message, "using EEG to send tweet," was done with a computer setup that interprets brain waves.

The technology could one day help patients who otherwise can't communicate finally talk to the outside world. Among them are people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), brain-stem stroke or high spinal cord injury.

Step forward

Other mind-reading devices have been developed recently. Other research has suggested brain activity could be monitored before decisions are made, perhaps with a mind-reading hat that would predict what we'll do. One shines near-infrared light into the noggin to glean thoughts.

And some brain-computer interface systems employ an electrode-studded cap wired to a computer to detect electrical signals in the brain and translate them into physical actions, such as moving a cursor on a screen.

Wilson and his colleagues wanted more.

"We started thinking that moving a cursor on a screen is a good scientific exercise," said Justin Williams, a University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor of biomedical engineering and Wilson's adviser. "But when we talk to people who have locked-in syndrome or a spinal-cord injury, their No. 1 concern is communication."

In collaboration with research Gerwin Schalk and colleagues at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, N.Y., Williams and Wilson developed an interface that involves a keyboard displayed on a computer screen. Here's how it works:

"All the letters come up, and each one of them flashes individually," Williams explained. "And what your brain does is, if you're looking at the 'R' on the screen and all the other letters are flashing, nothing happens. But when the 'R' flashes, your brain says, 'Hey, wait a minute. Something's different about what I was just paying attention to.' And you see a momentary change in brain activity."

Like texting

Wilson, who used the interface to post the Twitter update, likens it to texting on a cell phone.

"You have to press a button four times to get the character you want," he said of texting. "So this is kind of a slow process at first."

However, as with texting, users improve as they practice using the interface. "I've seen people do up to eight characters per minute," Wilson said.

The micro-blogging Twitter site, with its basis in very short messages, fits locked-in users' capabilities, Williams said. Tweets are displayed on a user's profile page and delivered to other Twitter users who have signed up to receive them.

"So someone could simply tell family and friends how they're feeling today," Williams said. "People at the other end can be following their thread and never know that the person is disabled. That would really be an enabling type of communication means for those people, and I think it would make them feel, in the online world, that they're not that much different from everybody else. That's why we did these things."

Funding for the project came from the university, the National Institutes of Health and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

This is cool. It's good for people who no longer can talk or communicate anymore, too. That's always nice.
The only downside it seems is the speed. Up to eight characters per minute? I guess for short messages it's good, but it would take a while for other things.

I've actually heard about that!

It's cool.  They're also using similar technologies to try and get people paralyzed from spinal cord injuires to be able to use their limbs again, by using wires to bypass the break.  Not just have your mind able to be read by computers.

[Mario583]

Every single one of your threads is a news thread.
WHY IS THIS

Make doodle his own rank, Newsbringer.

That was me on the original Nsider Forums.

G4 news.

[JrDude]

I hope they don't extend it beyond that. If it does, other people will want it due to laziness, and America will get even fatter, and the land will sink before 2012 even happens.
If you have to have some disabilities, fat people would say "My fingers are too thick for the keyboard."

That actually sounded stupid due to the fact that typing doesn't keep you slim in any way, but with the ability to type with you head, it would cause people to want to type more (with their head).

[L10]

I hope they don't extend it beyond that. If it does, other people will want it due to laziness, and America will get even fatter, and the land will sink before 2012 even happens.
If you have to have some disabilities, fat people would say "My fingers are too thick for the keyboard."

That actually sounded stupid due to the fact that typing doesn't keep you slim in any way, but with the ability to type with you head, it would cause people to want to type more (with their head).

This makes me wonder, kids in foreign countries telling their friends "Hey, did you know American's are so fat, they have a TV show dedicated to losing weight?! It's called the "Biggest Loser" or something like that."

How ridiculous does that sound? We have a TV show about losing weight.

[Rayquarian]

I'd rather take advantage of my financially cheap ability to type around 50-60 WPM than to spend who knows how much money to type at 1-2 WPM.

[Doodle]

I hope they don't extend it beyond that. If it does, other people will want it due to laziness, and America will get even fatter, and the land will sink before 2012 even happens.
If you have to have some disabilities, fat people would say "My fingers are too thick for the keyboard."

That actually sounded stupid due to the fact that typing doesn't keep you slim in any way, but with the ability to type with you head, it would cause people to want to type more (with their head).

I doubt it would be released for people with nothing wrong with them, except laziness.
But really now, if you're too lazy to type, there's a problem there. :P