Brain-to-brain communication

Science Alert and many others bring us the gospel about the research reported in PLOS in which thoughts were sent directly from one brain to another brain, using no other human organs, over the Internet. The two sides of the communication were located in France and in Spain or India.



Except for a couple of extra wires in between, the technology is really nothing else than telepathy.

They were sending binary messages (they have used "Ciao vs Hola" instead of "zero vs one", probably because they confused France with Italy LOL) and the input side has typed the words by the power of her will – by moving a ball on the screen via electromagnetic fields detected around her skull.

Correct me if I am wrong but I think that the whole Internet middle part of the experiment is pure marketing – they just sent the information over the Internet in the most ordinary way so of course that there may be thousands of miles in between. The receiving side obtained the information by "phosphenes". Electrical pulses near various parts of the skull are interpreted by the brain as flashes (I mentioned this fact 10 days ago when I talked about the Russian guy who used a collider beam instead of Botox. Bacon's cipher was used, too.




This research combining biology, electromagnetism, and codes is pretty cool and it's interesting to learn how the brain works. But I find the ocean of possible applications staggering. While I am a highly theoretical inclined person, the fantasies about the applications look more intriguing to me than the full understanding how the brains' communication departments work.




I can imagine hundreds of cool projects that someone should pay for and that could be easily realized.

For example, someone should create a machine for Stephen Hawking that would directly read his thoughts which would streamline his communication with the computer inside his wheelchair. I think that the way how he types is pretty obsolete and he wouldn't mind if someone sped it up by a large coefficient.

Second, something similar for more general users. I was so impressed by the speed of shape writing using the Windows Phone 8.1 keyboard that I have also bought the Swype keyboard for my android tablet while the price was still just $1 LOL. It's really, really fast – almost as fast as the physical keyboard.



The curve you write with your finger types "Sounders". The system immediately finds the most likely word you wanted to type – accuracy is not needed but a dictionary is helpful.

I think that someone should create a mind-reading version of Swype that would be just like Swype but you would use your brain's electromagnetic fields – the power of your mind – rather than your fingers to move the cursor. Isn't it possible? Imagine how quickly you could write if the machines learned how to read your Swype thinking efficiently enough.

The number of things that could be usefully controlled by your brain directly seems very large. I mentioned Swype because it's exactly the kind of "fuzzy technology" that has learned how to deal with inaccurate input and very similar algorithms could be useful to decode the data coming from the brain signals – to figure out what you really want to say or do. On the other, receiving side, the room for applications of the "flashes" is also large. It's like a new sense. It may be better to get information in this new "ESP" way instead of via Google glasses. It may be easier to wear a cap instead of glasses.

So please, apply for grants, crowdfunding or what's the term, and so on. Science-fiction could become our everyday life soon. ;-)