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Brain-to-brain communication is becoming a reality, says Andrea Stocco, who sees a future where minds meet to share ideas.

You are working on brain-to-brain communication. Can one person’s thoughts ever truly be experienced by another person?

Each brain is different. And while differences in anatomy are relatively easy to account for, differences in function are difficult to characterise. And then we have differences in experience – my idea of flying could be completely unlike your idea of flying, for example. When you think about flying, a bunch of associated experiences come into your mind, competing for your attention. We somehow need to strip away the individual differences to grasp the basic, shared factors.

Continue reading “I’m creating telepathy technology to get brains talking” »

A cognitive neuroscientist and his team at HRL Laboratories in Malibu, California, seem to have achieved the impossible.

According to a press release, the team “measured the brain activity patterns of six commercial and military pilots, and then transmitted these patterns into novice subjects as they learned to pilot an airplane in a realistic flight simulator.”

Continue reading “Can You Download Knowledge Into Your Brain With Electricity?” »

Researchers at Duke have developed a wireless brain interface that allows monkeys to control a robotic wheelchair using only their minds.

http://voc.tv/14JQHoo

He pointed out that Horizon Robotics will finish designing its first AI chip for smart home appliances by June and make it commercially available by early 2017.

Mainland Chinese start-up Horizon Robotics, founded by the former head of online search giant Baidu’s Institute of Deep Learning, claims it is on pace to bring chips with built-in artificial intelligence (AI) technology to market.

“General processors are too slow for AI functions. A dedicated chip will dramatically increase the speed of these functions,” Yu Kai, the founder and chief executive of Horizon Robotics told the South China Morning Post.

Continue reading “Chinese start-up on track to deliver artificial intelligence-on-a-chip” »

In a loud and distracting world, finding pockets of stillness can benefit your brain and body. Here are four science-backed reasons why.

Prepare to feel music like you never have before…

The nanoparticles could generate measurable magnetic fields in response to the brain’s electrical fields and then be used to send wireless messages.

At this rate, we may see Ray Kurzweil’s vision of connected humans to the cloud and full singularity before 30 years.

Duke University scientists have given a pair of monkeys the ability to drive a wheelchair with their thoughts alone. The work is described in a paper recently published in the journal Scientific Reports and adds to a growing body of work in brain-machine interfaces aiming to return some freedom to the severely disabled.

Continue reading “Watch Monkeys Drive Wheelchairs With Just Their Thoughts” »

The Allen Institute for Brain Science is releasing new, highly realistic computer models of neurons. The models were developed using tools and expertise from the Blue Brain Project.

The Allen Institute for Brain Science and the Blue Brain Project are deepening their collaboration. Today, the US-based Allen Institute is releasing a set of 40 computer models of neurons from the mouse visual cortex, created using tools developed by the Swiss-based Blue Brain Project at EPFL. Using Blue Brain technology, the researchers were able to reproduce the physiology and electrical activity of the neurons with an extremely high level of detail.

The Blue Brain Project is the simulation core of the Human Brain Project, a huge pan-European initiative. The scientific journal Cell recently published a long paper demonstrating the effectiveness of the Blue Brain Project’s modeling tools, focusing on the high accuracy and predictive power of the models and the discoveries they have already led to, including insight into the unexpected role of calcium. At the same time, the team has made these resources available to researchers around the world on a web-based platform.

Continue reading “Virtual Neurons Created by Blue Brain and the Allen Institute” »