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By Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson
news.bbc.co.uk-
April 20, 2010
* Researchers working on portable mind-readers
* Monitors brain scans
* Gadget Girl blog: More tech news
FORGET touchscreens. Future computers could read your mind instead, writes Jennifer
Dudley-Nicholson
Imagine linking your brain to Google, employing a robotic butler or making 3D images
from your holiday snapshots.
They sound like science fiction, but these technologies are being planned at Intel
Labs in New York and Pittsburgh.
Intel technology evangelist Sean Koehl says the firm best known for its computer
chips spends $6 billion on research and development yearly, much of it on what
computer processors might power in the future.
Brain-scanning
Scientists can scan your brain, though they need powerful, room-sized machines to do
so.
Intel researcher Dean Pomerleau is working on small, portable technology for
commanding computers using your mind.
He says researchers using new software and brain scans have identified what a person
is thinking about with 90 per cent accuracy
"This only works for concrete thoughts," Pomerleau says. "For example, we can tell
if you're thinking about the word 'cow' or 'dog' or 'house' because they trigger
different parts of the brain."
Pomerleau says the aim of the research - a joint project for Intel, the University
of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University - is to develop a portable mind-reading
gadget.
"Imagine if you could think of a query, look it up on Google and have the answer
without going to a computer," he says.
Home robots
The Jetsons' robotic maid Rosie is fresh in the mind of Siddhartha Srinivasa. The
research scientist is a close friend of HERB, the robot in residence at Intel's
Pittsburgh Labs at Carnegie Mellon University, and he believes domestic robots will
become common.
HERB, the Home-Exploring Robot Butler, is a $250,000 creation consisting of a
robotic arm and object sensor on a Segway base.
HERB can roam autonomously, serve drinks, open doors and carry objects.
The team has been working on HERB for three years, and command him from a laptop
using an Intel i7 processor.
Srinivasa says robots will probably be used to assist the elderly or disabled,
though they could also do cleaning or carry groceries.
HERB is on his way to achieving these tasks, Srinivasa says, and forecasts we could
have home robots in 10 years. Researcher Mike Vande Weghe estimates robotic
housekeepers could cost $50,000 to $60,000.
3D snapshots: With digital photos and videos, travellers can recreate their
experiences. Sean Koehl is trying to achieve this in 3D and envisions it being used
in everything from computer games to eBay, using a digital camera and a PC with a
quad-core processor.
Users must capture 24 digital photos of the object or person to be made into a 3D
graphic, covering all angles. The images are fed into the 3D software and, after 10
minutes of processing, appear as a 3D image that can be rotated on the screen.
Koehl says the software could be widely available in three to five years.
Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson travelled to the US as a guest of Intel.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/future-computers-will-read-your-mind/story-e6frfro0-1225856255787
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