Controlling things via thought ? Don't laugh, it's already there !

For many people, to be able to control things only using thought is more associated with fantasy than reality. However, the consumer electronics improvements combined with brain related research are currently making the dream come true.

During the last years, some prototypes were performing but were a bit too intrusive, because they necessitated a surgery to implant a chip in the user's brain.

This video about the Braingate system is a good illustration of this great but intrusive technology, in a medical context : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJJPbpHoPWo

But big improvements have been done, and an article from The Economist is actually showing how this can be possible, basically connecting a human brain and a computer thanks to electrodes sit on the scalp.

These outstanding improvements are not geographically so far, because one of the most promising recent prototype comes from a team of the University of Zaragoza, which announced a commercialization during 2014 !

There is another constraint to assess in this domain, which is the headset design, quite rudimentary if we take a look on the first trials in this domain, presenting a large set of unelegant wires.

This is changing too : Emotiv sells special headsets that enable - to some extent - to interact with movies or games.

And it doesn't stop here : Neurosky proposes a large set of potential applications, for instance trying to break the secrets of sport performance.

On the whole, we can assess that the domains of application seem to be literally limitless...

...communication evolution

…created for calls, developed in multi-connection platforms with the most advanced computing abilities and application functionalities: here the SMARTPHONE.                          

A research published at ASYMCO.COM is forecasting that, within five years, all phones will be smartphones. But how will smartphones and their usage evolve? “Human interface” is definitely playing a key role in defining how it will look like…                                             

 Microsoft is currently working on the development of a new interface for Windows 8 phones, based on gesture recognition and advanced control movement (VR-Zone.com).         

Other companies (such as Hillcrest Labs) are moving in the same direction to create the “next-generation user experience” through multi-platforms devices for gesture recognition (infohq.com)                                                                                                                   

As reported in the article at ECNMAG.COM, this new smartphone generation will modify our habits and allow us to complete a larger number of tasks.                                                      

But do you really believe that the final result of this evolutionary process will be a “totally humanized phone”, as proposed by the following Nokia research - HumanForm, able not only to capture visible movements, but also to understand and translate feelings through emotional interactions? 

Take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=ovqDMvsWuvc    

Recalculating Route: On the Road to New Ways of Communicating with Machines

So where did we start? Lost in the mists of time are the days of highly complex and non-intuitive interfaces such as punch-cards.
By the earliest days of the personal computer in the 1970s, the basic input and output devices were a pair of already-familiar repurposed devices: the typewriter and the television. With the addition of either a mouse (developed in the 70s at Xerox-PARC) or the touchpad, these are probably the same basic interfaces you are using now.

The scenic route (or were they wrong turns?). 

A number of not-ready-for-primetime technologies have attempted to challenge the keyboard-monitor-mouse triumvirate over the years. Some versions of commercial handwriting recognition and voice recognition have been around for more than a decade. Both are coming closer and closer to becoming everyday interfaces (see the iPhone's Siri and iOS feature - click here). Others have had only very niche applications -- such as eyeball tracking devices that allow quadriplegics to operate a computer.

Please enter your destination. Or, where are we going? So, what is the future of the human interface? The purpose of this blog is to discuss developments, trends, and potential new applications of human interface technology. The question isn't when will I get my jet pack and my flying car. It is when I will get to view the world like the Terminator