Brains, computers, and drones: think and control!
In ACM Interactions 22(4). pages 44-47. 2015.
Nataliya Kos'myna, Franck Tarpin-Bernard, Bertrand Rivet
Résumé
Imagine you could control the world with your thoughts. Sounds appealing, doesn’t it? There is a technology that can capture your brain activity and issue commands to computer systems, such as robots, prosthetics, and games. Indeed, brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have been around since the 1970s, and have improved with each passing decade. You might wonder: “Wait! If this technology has been around all this time, how come we’re not all using it? I mean, we hear about great applications sometimes in the press—controlling a drone, for instance—but then nothing seems to come of it. Why is that?”