Friday, September 07, 2007

Thought-controlled wheelchair

The company Ambient has demonstrated a motorized wheelchair that is controlled by subvocal speech. The individual thinks of a particular word and a sensor collar around the user's neck detects the electrical signals sent from his or her brain to the larynx muscles. The computer then matches those signal patterns to pre-programmed "words" used to control whatever apparatus the system is attached to, in this case a wheelchair. The approach is similar to the subvocal speech system recently demonstrated by NASA for future spacesuit communication devices.


Now if they'd only develop a miniaturized wearable word processor designed around the same principle . . .

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It would help my carpal tunnel!

Anonymous said...

"Now if they'd only develop a miniaturized wearable word processor designed around the same principle . . ."

Oh, yeah! Sub-vocalization transcription--sure would like to see that, myself. Think of the wild, beat stream-of-conciousness fiction and non-fiction that would thus be derived!

Could we call such a device a 'Kerouac'? Would we "Jack-in" to said device? Should we take it "on the road"? Beats me! -(8^}
[note the smiley's 'beret']

Mac said...

Could we call such a device a 'Kerouac'?

Hey, I like that!