MEMS Gyroscopes.

Enabling a device to orient itself and respond to movement, MEMS gyroscopes have produced the next big technological splash: touch-triggered screens. This is what gives devices like the iPhone their interactive edge. Many manufacturers in the Silicon Valley have switched from conventional microchips to MEMS production, and gyroscopes are poised to be one of the best performers in years to come.Companies like InvenSense of Santa Clara have devoted themselves entirely to fabricating dual-axis gyroscopes that integrate with handheld devices in order to give them that special something.InvenSense’s gyroscopes don’t just end up in your palm pilot, however.
They’ve also been used for years in places like video game controllers, where a good gyroscope can give the player more natural control—this is what made the Wii so revolutionary, and it continues to sweep the industry as more and more video game companies switch to controllers that operate based on players’ body movements. Microscopic MEMS technology made that possible.

Digital cameras can also benefit from MEMS gyroscope integration; it allows the camera to sense when it is being turned in order to modify the screen from a landscape to a portrait layout. Motion-sensing MEMS technology is equally well suited to the development of applications like the face-location or smile-location device. The MEMS sensor implanted in these cameras makes it possible for them to perform “smart” functions and will probably lead to the integration of digital cameras with touch-screen devices at some point in the near future.

InvenSense has almost reached their personal goal of establishing an inertial measurement unit, otherwise known as an IMU, which will need only a single chip to function. It is anticipated that this IMU will engender the next generation of consumer electronics; they will be packed full of rich features, graphics, and sound; and thanks to refined MEMS technology they will also have advanced motion-sensing capabilities that allow even the vibrations of a human voice to trigger their performance. As they seek to mass-manufacture MEMS gyroscopes and single-chip IMUs, InvenSense expects to reach a point where they can market these sensitive devices for less than a dollar per axis.

This would make it much more attractive for electronics manufacturers to regularly incorporate motion-sensing technology into their handheld devices and would thereby render them much more common in everyday life. Soon, MEMS gyroscopes and their motion-sensor counterparts will be the standard by which we judge handheld consumer electronics, not the high-end exception as they currently seem to be.

Researchers, investors, and manufacturers can all see the way the market is going. InvenSense has protected its personal MEMS designs with no less than 12 patents that cover everything from wafer integration to packaging. This only goes to show how seriously MEMS technology could impact the economy if handled correctly.

Advertisers and marketing agents stand to gain an equally large share from the burgeoning nanotechnology field and its sister enterprises; if the cash flow that attended the iPhone’s debut is any indication, public reception of even better “smart” devices will be overwhelming.

InvenSense is working to make that dream a reality with their patented manufacturing system, which integrates two very low-cost X-axis and Y-axis MEMS gyroscopes in order to not only simplify but also reduce costs associated with the production process typically needed for gyroscopes of any kind.

They can combine these gyroscopes on a single chip, making it easier for the main electronics manufacturer to then install the technology into their devices. In its own small way, this innovation is just as striking as Henry Ford’s assembly line—it has equally important implications for those involved in this industry.

Such a breakthrough has led InvenSense in a whole new direction. Whereas before their work was focused on the computing side of delicate electronics manufacturing, now they are getting more involved in the nuts and bolts of the operation so as to upgrade their production efficiency.

Company leaders have transferred much of their production energy to a high-output MEMS foundry that can create thousands of MEMS gyroscope sensors alongside other essential consumer electronics devices, all on the surface of a single 6-inch silicon wafer.

Their research and development teams are hard at work on continually shrinking the size of this wafer as well as integrating applications and functions performed by electronics hardware so that every day one device can be used to do the work of two, thereby taking up less space on the chip and reducing the eventual size of the end product. And as we all know, if there’s anything consumers typically want out of their handheld electronics, it tends to be a consistently smaller and sleeker design that still delivers an increase in functionality.

What does this mean for the typical consumer? If you are at all familiar with the Nintendo Wii gaming system, you can expect to be equally shocked by the coming upgrade to systems like that one. People were surprised and overjoyed to find a new level of movement in the Wii controller, but the fact remains that the Wii still has its limitations and has left much room for improvement.

By Christmas 2009 it is anticipated that gaming systems and similar electronics will be completely controller-free, so that the player will have to do nothing more than stand in front of their television and move their body to play a video game. And of course as the technology improves, players will be able to move farther and farther away from the gaming device and still have a superior level of control. Researchers expect to incorporate voice and gesture recognition into a variety of consumer devices from recreational to business functions; they are also working to integrate various technologies so that eventually one portable device will do the work of many.

Wait a few years and you may find that the same machine that acts as your laptop is also your iPod, Palm Pilot, Nintendo gaming system, phone, and car stereo rolled into one. With MEMS technology on the rise, anything is possible.

Super Stretchy Material is Also Super Strong.

Looking for a new material that was tough, scientists developed one that also can stretch up to 20 times its original length without breaking. The new compound, a hydrogel, could someday be used as artificial cartilage, the researchers say.
A typical hydrogel (a gel whose particles are dispersed in water) can stretch only a few times its length, if that. Even natural rubber can stretch only five to six times its length.
But the new compound, made of alginate, polyacrylamide and water, proved to be far more stretchable and fracture-proof in tests. Harvard mechanical engineer Zhigang Suo said the scientists clamped it in a stretching machine and also dropped a stainless-steel ball on it.
Lab-made hydrogels are used in soft contact lenses, tissue engineering scaffolds, and drug delivery. Natural hydrogels include tofu (which can be nearly 90 percent water) and "many of our body parts," Suo said. "Cartilage, your heart, your brain can be characterized as hydrogels."
Incredibly enough, the stretchiness was just a side effect of the team's research, Suo said. "We are mainly studying this as a tough material. It happened to be very stretchable, but it really is tough."
A typical hydrogel requires only 10 joules per square meter of force to break. Current contact lenses, made of a hydrogel developed in the 1960s, will break after a few hundred joules per square meter of force. Human cartilage won't tear until it's subjected to 1,000 joules per square meter.

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"Our material, the fracture energy goes to about 10,000," Suo said. Since the two polymers that make up the solid part of the gel are "well-known biocompatible materials," the final product may make a suitable cartilage replacement, he said.
The material can recover from being over-stretched, Suo added. If it loses elasticity after being stretched too far, heating it to 176 degrees Fahrenheit (80 degrees Celsius) will restore its stretchiness and firmness.

Mysterious Material Remembers Its Shape.

A strange new substance acts like a liquid when exposed to air, but takes a solid shape when it's dunked in water.
The new stuff is a metamaterial, scientists' word for a lab-made material that has properties uncommon in nature. Even among metamaterials, however, this material is unusual -- it's composed of artificial DNA, while most metamaterials are composed of nonbiological chemicals such as silicon or copper. Its creators are calling it a "meta-hydrogel."
In the future, metamaterials made of biological stuff could go into soft, flexible circuits, according to a statement from Cornell University, where the meta-hydrogel was made. Because they have pores in which drug molecules could fit, meta-hydrogels could help release medicines slowly inside the body, the statement said.
Adding to its unusual properties, the new meta-hydrogel remembers its original shape. If it's made in a mold, it will return to its original, molded shape every time it's doused in water, even after researchers expose it to air -- and force it into its liquidlike state -- several times. The researchers made a video that shows the meta-hydrogel firming up into letters when a researcher adds water to it.
To get the meta-hydrogel to take on a new solid shape, the gel’s creators heat it to 185 degrees Fahrenheit (85 degrees Celsius) and set it in new molds.
When a team of Cornell engineers first mixed the chemicals to make their meta-hydrogel, they didn't know it would act so strangely. "This was not by design," Dan Luo, the lead scientist in the research, said. Luo and his colleagues have used synthetic DNA to make hydrogels, or gels composed mostly of water, before. This time, they wanted to make a DNA hydrogel with a different microscopic structure. It was only after they created their meta-hydrogel that they discovered its unique abilities, the researchers wrote in a paper they published Dec. 2 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Retina Display.

Retina Display is a brand name used by Apple for liquid crystal displays which they claim have a high enough pixel density that the human eye is unable to notice pixelation at a typical viewing distance. The term is used for several Apple products, including the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and MacBook Pro. As the typical viewing distance would be different depending on each device's usage, the pixels per inch claimed as retina quality can be different for the smallest devices (326, iPhone and iPod Touch): greater than the mid-sized devices (264, iPad) and greater than the larger devices (220, MacBook Pro). When an Apple product has retina display, each user interface widget is doubled in width and height to compensate for the smaller pixels. This mode is referred to as HiDPI mode by Apple.
Apple has applied to register the term "Retina" as a trademark in regard to computers and mobile devices with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Canadian Intellectual Property Office, and in Jamaica. On November 27, 2012 the US Patent and Trademark office approved Apple's application and Retina® is now a registered trademark.

Technical definition

When introducing the iPhone 4, Steve Jobs said the magic number for a retina display is about 300 PPI for a device held 10 to 12 inches from the eye. One way of expressing this as a unit is Pixels Per Degree (PPD) which takes into account both the screen resolution and the distance from which the device is viewed. Based on Jobs' magic number of 300, the threshold for a Retina Display starts at a PPD value of 53. 53 PPD means that a tall skinny triangle with a height equal to the viewing distance and a top angle of one degree will have a base on the device's screen that covers 53 pixels. Any display's viewing quality (from phone displays to huge projectors) can be described with this size-independent universal parameter. Note that the PPD parameter is not an intrinsic parameter of the display itself, unlike absolute pixel resolution (e.g. 1024 x 800 pixels) or relative pixel density (e.g. 72 PPI), but is dependent on the distance between the display and the eye of the person (or lens of the device) viewing the display; moving the eye closer to the display reduces the PPD, and moving away from it increases the PPD in proportion to the distance. It can be calculated by multiplying the distance to the screen times the PPI resolution of the screen times π divided by 180 degrees

Boost Creativity with Electric Brain Stimulation.

Cases of savant syndrome have inspired an electrical brain stimulation technique for boosting creative insight.

A great idea comes all of a sudden. In the depths of the mind, networks of brain cells perform a sublime symphony, and a twinkle of insight pops into consciousness. Unexpected as they are, these lightbulb moments seem impossible to orchestrate. Recent studies suggest otherwise. By freeing the mind of some of its inhibitions, we might improve creative problem solving.
The human brain constantly filters thoughts and feelings. Only a small fraction of the stimuli impressed on us by our environment ascends to the level of conscious awareness. Prior learning enforces mental shortcuts that determine which sensations are deemed worthy of our attention. Our laboratory is investigating whether we can weaken these biases and boost openness to new ideas by temporarily diminishing the neural activity in specific brain areas.

In Brief

• People with savant syndrome, who possess great skill in specific areas, seem to have a more literal, less filtered cognitive style than most people.
• A savant may have dysfunction in the normally dominant left hemisphere of the brain, which the right hemisphere compensates for.
• Using noninvasive brain stimulation, scientists are attempting to induce this pattern of brain activity, so as to produce a less filtered cognitive style and to access a different way of looking at a given problem.

5 Breakthroughs For Gadgets In 2012.

Innovation in the gadget business rarely comes in great leaps forward. Most of the time, somebody will take an existing idea and implement it at a cheaper cost, at a larger scale or in a new context, and that change is enough to shake up our sense of what technology can do.
And that's exactly what these five breakthroughs have done for me this year.
1. "Retina displays" grow up, and out. Two years after Apple's iPhone 4 introduced a display so sharp that you could no longer distinguish its constituent pixels, "Retina displays" started showing up in the Cupertino company's other gadgets (and many competing smartphones). On this spring's iPad, the results were amazing, instantly making the old model's screen look bad.
But on Apple's laptops, Retina displays have jacked up prices substantially. And on flat-panel TVs, ultra-high-resolution "4K" and "8K" resolution suffers from the fact that at typical couch-viewing distance, even mere HD resolution can exceed our visual acuity.
2. Cheaper smartphone service. This year, the cost of keeping a new smartphone finally started ratcheting down in a big way. The prepaid carrier Cricket Wireless slashed the monthly bill for an iPhone to $55, then its competitor Virgin Mobile beat even that with a $30 deal.
Among the four major carriers, Verizon Wireless may have hiked its rates but T-Mobile has gone in the other direction with "value" plans that subtract the usual subsidy of a cheaper phone price, meaning you save more over time. And next year, that carrier will make that its standard.
3. Affordable gigabit broadband. While most Americans are stuck with the same one or two broadband Internet providers as ever, a lucky few can now sign up for breathtakingly faster connections at prices no higher than a low-end cable bill: Sonic.net charges just $70 for gigabit (1 billion bits per second) service in parts of the Bay Area, a price matched by Google's gigabit-fiber service in Kansas City.
Sure, most of us can't use those speeds. But imagine what the arrival of gigabit access for under $100 would do to your own ISP's pricing... or don't, if you'd rather not depress yourself.
4. Smarter shared transportation. Near-ubiquitous wireless-data service and cheap GPS sensors are making it easier and cheaper to get around cities without having to own your own ride. Among the most interesting such options: car2go, which broke out of its Austin test market this year with a launch in Washington this spring, followed by expansion to Miami, Portland, San Diego and Seattle. It allows you to rent a Smart fortwo at a cheap, per-minute rate and then park it on the street for free -- in effect, making it a longer-distance complement to bicycle-sharing services like D.C.'s Capital Bikeshare.
I'm equally fascinated by startups that make better use of transportation we've already paid for, such as the Uber sedan-ride service. But when these involve privately-owned conveyances -- for instance, Lyft's carpooling -- they can run into legal hangups.
5. The Internet winning in Washington. One of the tech business's most promising developments didn't involve software code or circuit boards. But the way Internet users rebelled at the offensive overreach of the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would have broken the Net's basic routing system and allowed copyright holders to unplug the finances of allegedly infrinting websites pretty much at will, mattered anyway.
"SOPA" had the backing of some of Washington's most entrenched interests, but individual citizens who didn't want to see technology criminalized overcame all of it. That's good news for continued innovation, both next year and over the next decade.

Car Ultrasound Could Save Fuel.

 When one hears the word "ultrasound" the last thing that comes to mind is auto maintenance. But if the researchers at the University of Sheffield's Department of Mechanical Engineering have their way, it will be one of the best methods of finding out just how energy efficient a car engine really is.

Their technique provides key details about the pistons, which are housed in sealed chambers. Pistons are at the heart of a combustion engineand are responsible for the spark that produces the power that's transmitted to the crank shaft and ultimately the wheels. Understanding how the oil works inside this sealed chamber is important for improving a car's fuel efficiency. For example, adding too much oil can be wasteful and it can get burnt in the engine, increasing emissions. Not enough oil will wear the metal engine parts.  

Usually, engineers use computer models to estimate efficiency. But mechanical engineering professor, Rob Dwyer-Joyce, thought ultrasound might provide a better picture. He attached sensors to the outside of the cylinder wall and then used an ultrasound machine to transmit pulses into the sealed cylinder. The sound waves bounced back to the sensors and Dwyer-Joyce was able to measure and record what's going on with the oil inside.

In a press release, Dywer-Joyce said, "Our method will allow engine manufacturers to adjust lubrication levels with confidence and ensure they are using the optimum level for any particular engine, rather than over-lubricating to ensure engine safety."
Dywer also pointed out that this method isn't only good for vehicle energy efficiency measurement, it could also be used on the larger engines that deep water marine vessels use. The research team is currently seeking industrial partners to make this into a commercial product.

Luna-Trips: Upstart Firm Plans to Sell Round-Trip Journeys to the Moon .

Golden Spike, helmed by former NASA officials, wants to return human explorers to the lunar surface--for a price.
   WASHINGTON, D.C.—A private spaceflight company that has been operating in secret for two years announced yesterday an ambitious plan to launch manned missions to the moon.
The company, named Golden Spike after the ceremonial railway spike that marked the completion of the first transcontinental railway, would send two-person crews to the lunar surface and back at a cost of $750 million per passenger. If the plan comes to fruition, the first astronauts to step out of a Golden Spike lander could be the first human beings to set foot on the moon since the final Apollo mission in 1972.
Golden Spike's plans rank among the most audacious privately funded space exploration missions ever proposed. The company said its first launch would cost $7 billion to $8 billion but that subsequent trips would be much cheaper, at roughly $1.5 billion. That is less than many robotic missions launched by national space agencies, Alan Stern, president and CEO of the new company, said during a press conference here. "We estimate that there are 15 to 20, or more, expeditions of this type out there," involving nations interested in lunar science but lacking the capability to send astronauts, he said. Stern, who is also the former head of NASA's Science Mission Directorate and the principal investigator of the New Horizons robotic mission now en route to Pluto, said he believed tourists and commercial businesses (such as mining companies) would also be potential customers.
Golden Spike intends to have the first customers on the moon by 2020, a plan that hinges on the use of currently existing (or "soon to be existing") launch vehicles, spacecraft and technologies.
So far, though, the plan remains in the realm of the hypothetical. Golden Spike needs to raise $8 billion before its first rocket lifts off. To fill the company coffers, the firm expects to draw on ticket presales as well as on marketing and advertising. Given the international flavor expected of the missions, "we expect these expeditions to be the equivalent of the Olympics," Stern said. "Think of the advertising time; the naming rights—it's a very important part of our business." Stern would not release details on the company's financials, but acknowledged that "we need to sell a bunch" of seats. "If we sell three or four, we're completely upside down."
Gerry Griffin, chair of the Golden Spike board and former director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, concurred. "I don't think there are any technological issues," Griffin said. "It's going to be financial."
Nevertheless, returning to the moon has so far proved both expensive and difficult. Under former Pres. George W. Bush, NASA had planned to put astronauts back on the moon by 2020 as part of the Constellation Program. But budget and technology-development issues have left Constellation dead in the water. And NASA's next-generation Space Launch System is nowhere near operational.
Consequently, no launch vehicle today stands ready to take people to the moon and back, although the Falcon Heavy rocket built by private spaceflight firm SpaceX, which is currently in testing, may fill the void. Golden Spike wrote a concept paper that has been accepted for publication in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics's Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets that discussed using the Falcon Heavy in the context of a moon mission, but Stern cautioned that no official announcement has been made as to which launch vehicle the new company will use.

The Golden Spike announcement came just a day after a National Research Council report concluded that NASA lacked direction and in fact had a mission statement so "generic" it could apply to any government research agency. The timing of the lunar reveal was notable in at least one other respect, arriving as it did one day before the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 17, the last mission to deliver astronauts to the moon.
In a statement responding to Golden Spike's announcement, a NASA spokesperson said: "This type of private sector effort is further evidence of the timeliness and wisdom of the Obama administration's overall space policy—to create an environment where commercial space companies can build upon NASA's past successes, allowing the agency to focus on the new challenges of sending humans to an asteroid and eventually Mars."
As NASA targets other destinations, the potential benefits for lunar science—if Golden Spike can realize its lofty ambitions—are huge. Stern argued that the robotic rovers Spirit and Opportunity spent four years on Mars before delivering as much science as Apollo 17 accomplished in a few days with two humans (including a trained geologist) on the moon.
In addition to Stern and Griffin, Golden Spike counts among its advisers politician Newt Gingrich, former House Science Committee Chair Bob Walker, former Space Shuttle Program Chief Wayne Hale, a Star Trek set designer, and Nancy Conrad, founder of the Conrad Foundation and widow of Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad.
Conrad, speaking from the audience at the press conference, said that her late husband had become very interested in commercial spaceflight near the end of his life. "If I could imagine what he'd be doing right now if he were here," she said, "he'd probably be clicking his heels."

Blade Runner: 18-Rotor "Volocopter" Moving from Concept to Prototype.

It may look "nutty" and like a "blender," but the designers say the craft could challenge helicopters.

Inventor and physicist Thomas Senkel created an Internet sensation with the October 2011 video of his maiden—and only—test flight of a spidery proof-of-concept 16-rotor helicopter dubbed Multicopter 1. Now the maker of the experimental personal aviation craft, the European start-up e-volo, is back with a revised "volocopter" design that adds two more rotors, a serial hybrid drive and long-term plans for going to 100 percent battery power.

The new design calls for 1.8-meter, 0.5-kilogram carbon-fiber blades, each paired with a motor. They are arrayed around a hub in two concentric circles over a boxy one- or two-person cockpit.

After awarding the volocopter concept a Lindbergh Prize for Innovation in April, Yolanka Wulff, executive director of The Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation, admitted the idea of the multi-blade chopper at first seems "nutty." Looking beyond the novel appearance, however, she says, e-volo's concept excels in safety, energy efficiency and simplicity, which were the bases of the prize.

All three attributes arrive thanks largely to evolo’s removal of classic helicopter elements. First, the energy-robbing high-mass main rotor, transmission, tail boom and tail rotor are gone. The enormous blades over a normal chopper's cabin create lift, but their mass creates a high degree of stress and wear on the craft. And the small tail rotor, perched vertically out on a boom behind the cabin, keeps the helicopter's body from spinning in the opposite direction as the main blades, but it also eats up about 30 percent of a helicopter's power.

The volocopter's multiple rotor blades individually would not create the torque that a single large rotor produces, and they offer redundancy for safety. Hypothetically, the volocopter could fly with a few as 12 functioning rotors, as long as those rotors were not all clustered together on one side, says Senkel, the aircraft's co-inventor and e-volo's lead construction engineer.

Without the iconic two-prop configuration, the craft would be lighter, making it more fuel efficient and reducing the physical complexity of delivering power to the top and rear blades from a single engine. Nor would the volocopter need an energy-hungry transmission. In fact, "there will be no mechanical connection between the gas engine and the blades," Senkel says. That means fewer points of energy loss and more redundancy for safety.

E-volo's design eliminates the dependence on a single source of power to the blades. As a serial-hybrid vehicle, the volocopter would have a gas-fueled engine, in this case an engine capable of generating 50- to 75 kilowatts, typical of ultralight aircraft. Rather than mechanically drive the rotors, the engine would generate power for electric motors as well as charge onboard lithium batteries. Should it fail, the batteries are expected to provide enough backup power so the craft could make a controlled landing.

Whereas helicopters navigate by changing the pitch of the main and tail rotor blades, the volocopter's maneuverability will depend on changing the speed of individual rotors. Although more complex, it is more precise in principle to control a craft using three to six redundant microcontrollers (in case one or more fails) interpreting instructions from a pilot using a game console–like joystick—instead of rudder pedals, a control stick and a throttle.

Wulff's first impression about the volocopter's design is not uncommon. E-volo's computer-animated promotional videos of a gleaming white, carbon-fiber and fiberglass craft beneath a thatch of blades recall the many-winged would-be flying machines of the late 19th century. This point is not lost on Senkel.

"I understand these skeptical opinions," he says. "The design concept looks like a blender. But we really are making a safe flying machine."

6 Electronic Devices You Can Control with Your Thoughts.

From toys to mind monitoring, brain-computer interface options are already on the market.
BCI (brain–computer interface) has long been a favorite of sci-fi movies (paging Professor Xavier!). However, some early BCI products are already for sale. Unfortunately, this isn't the dawn of BCI—it's the pre-dawn. These products are crude, imprecise and sometimes frustratingly nonresponsive—that's how it goes with EEG-based headsets, which pick up only the faintest electroencephalographic echoes of neural activity through the skull. (Beware, in particular, of the toys, which garner Amazon reviews ranging from wildly polarizing to absolutely scathing.) But these technologies are based on real BCI principles, and when they work, they're a fascinating glimpse of mind–machine merging mergers to come. (Below are representative online prices, such as those found on Amazon.)
Star Wars Science Force Trainer ($35): This toy includes a wireless headset, ping-pong ball and a clear plastic tube with a fan beneath. As you concentrate, your brain activity turns up the fan so that it blows a ping-pong ball up a tube. Yoda's voice guides you: "Reach out with your feelings! Use The Force. Do or do not; there is no try."

Mindflex ($47): Mattel's game is another ball-in-an-air-column setup. This time the object is to guide the ball through hoops, hurdles, funnels and a seesaw. You control the fan power, and therefore the height of the foam ball, with your thoughts; you control the ball's horizontal movement through the course with a knob.

Mindflex Duel ($44): For about the same price, you can buy a two-headset version of the Mindflex. In some games, your concentration controls the fan strength—as in the original game; in others, it controls the lateral movement of the sliding fan, so that you and a buddy can have a kind of "think of war" battle.

Neural Impulse Actuator ($107): This "brain mouse" is marketed as a Windows game-playing accessory that lets you control game functions with your thoughts. You can assign it to trigger left-clicks, for example, or to make your character walk or shoot.

MindSet ($199): This $199 headset, from NeuroSky, is a traditional Bluetooth headset, suitable for Skype calls and so on. But it's also an EEG headset, a somewhat less frivolous one than the games described above. The software includes a simple "brain-wave monitor" app, but the real potential lies in the developer kit, which allows programmers to come up with their own MindSet-driven software.

EPOC ($299): Emotiv's $299 headset is the most serious consumer option yet. The wired headset has 16 contacts, and you're supposed to wet them with saline solution for better contact. As a result, the sensitivity is far superior to what you get from the dry-connection, single-contact headsets. The company includes a few starter games and monitors to get you going—but here again, the real promise is the software development kit.

In short, most of the consumer BCI offerings so far fall under the headings "Gimmick" and "Quick Novelty Wear-Off Factor." But sometimes it's not about how well the bear dances—it's that the bear can dance at all.

How Far Away Is Mind-Machine Integration?

  

Forget voice control or gesture recognition: gadgets may soon link directly to our brains.
Okay, great: we can control Our phones with speech recognition and our television sets with gesture recognition. But those technologies don't work in all situations for all people. So I say, forget about those crude beginnings; what we really want is thought recognition.
As I found out during research for a recent NOVA episode, it mostly appears that brain-computer interface (BCI) technology has not advanced very far just yet. For example, I tried to make a toy helicopter fly by thinking “up” as I wore a $300 commercial EEG headset. It barely worked.
Such “mind-reading” caps are quick to put on and noninvasive. They listen, through your scalp, for the incredibly weak remnants of electrical signals from your brain activity. But they're lousy at figuring out where in your brain they originated. Furthermore, the headset software didn't even know that I was thinking “up.” I could just as easily have thought “goofy” or “shoelace” or “pickle”—whatever I had thought about during the 15-second training session.
There are other noninvasive brain scanners—magnetoencephalography, positron-emission tomography and near-infrared spectroscopy, and so on—but each also has its trade-offs.
Of course, you can implant sensors inside someone's skull for the best readings of all; immobilized patients have successfully manipulated computer cursors and robotic arms using this approach. Still, when it comes to controlling everyday electronics, brain surgery might be a tough sell.
My most astonishing discovery came at Carnegie Mellon University, where Marcel Just and Tom Mitchell have been using real-time functional MRI scanners to do some actual mind reading—or thought recognition, as they more responsibly call it.
As I lay in the fMRI, I saw 20 images on the screen (of a strawberry, skyscraper, cave, and so on). I was instructed to imagine the qualities of each object. The computer would try to figure out, from every two objects, the sequence of the two images I had just seen (whether strawberry had come before skyscraper, for example). It got them 100 percent right.
It turns out that, regardless of our native language or personal history, the same parts of our brain “light up” when we think of certain nouns. For “strawberry,” we might think “red,” “eat” or “hold in one hand.” The computer knows which brain areas are active for which qualities. The system can also guess what number you're thinking of or which of 15 emotions you're feeling.
Now, much needs to happen before we can change TV channels just by thinking “CBS.” In these early days, most BCI research is focused on how to help the disabled move or how to detect lies. And that work is raising plenty of questions about ethics, privacy and credibility. There will be other questions when thought recognition does come to gadgets. What happens if you get distracted when you're mind dictating an e-mail? Who wins if your spouse and you think about two different channels? And who's going to submit to an MRI to adjust music volume?
Just, who runs the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon, isn't worried about that part. “Our machine is a monster,” he told me. But “someday some biophysicist is going to develop some far smaller device, probably operating on a different principle.” At this point, it is too early to see where BCI will land or even when it will take off. And that's fine. After all, when somebody invented the wheel, he or she probably didn't imagine Acela trains, roller coasters or skateboards right away.
Still, I've had my mind read, and I'm a believer. There's something brewing, and millions of dollars are being poured into the effort to refine it. The next great interface breakthrough may tap into the electrical device you were born with.