World-first experiment achieves direct brain-to-brain communication in human subjects

For the first time, an international team of neuroscientists has transmitted a message from the brain of one person in India to the brains of three people in France. 

The team, which includes researchers from Harvard Medical School’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the Starlab Barcelona in Spain, and Axilum Robotics in France, has announced today the successful transmission of a brain-to-brain message over a distance of 8,000 kilometres. 

"We wanted to find out if one could communicate directly between two people by reading out the brain activity from one person and injecting brain activity into the second person, and do so across great physical distances by leveraging existing communication pathways,” said one of the team, Harvard’s Alvaro Pascual-Leone in a press release. "One such pathway is, of course, the Internet, so our question became, 'Could we develop an experiment that would bypass the talking or typing part of internet and establish direct brain-to-brain communication between subjects located far away from each other in India and France?'"

The team achieved this world-first feat by fitting out one of their participants - known as the emitter - with a device called an electrode-based brain-computer (BCI). This device, which sits over the participant’s head, can interpret the electrical currents in the participant’s brain and translate them into a binary code called Bacon's cipher. This type of code is similar to what computers use, but more compact. 

"The emitter now has to enter that binary string into the laptop using her thoughts,” says Francie Diep at Popular Science. "She does this by using her thoughts to move the white circle on-screen to different corners of the screen. (Upper right corner for "1," bottom right corner for "0.") This part of the process takes advantage of technology that several labs have developed, to allow people with paralysis to control computer cursors or robot arms."

Once uploaded, this code is then transmitted via the Internet to another participant - called the receiver - who was also fitted with a device, this time a computer-brain interface (CBI). This device emits electrical pulses, directed by a robotic arm, through the receiver’s head, which make them ‘see’ flashes of light called phosphenes that don’t actually exist. 

"As soon as the receivers' machine gets the emitter's binary message over the Internet, the machine gets to work,” says Diep. "It moves its robotic arm around, sending phosphenes to the receivers at different positions on their skulls. Flashes appearing in one position correspond to 1s in the emitter's message, while flashes appearing in another position correspond to 0s.

Exactly how the receivers are recording the flashes so they can translate all those 0s and 1s isn’t clear, but it could be as simple and writing them down with an actual pen and paper.

While it’s not clear at this stage what the applications for this technology could be, it’s a pretty incredible achievement. Oh, and the messages they transmitted? The conveniently brief and friendly, “Hola” and “Ciao”. 

LaCie Safe

This computer invention provides peace of mind for securing your information.
Storing your files on this mobile hard drive gives you multiple levels of protection because it uses advanced encryption and biometric authentication technology.
The Safe uses 128-bit AES encryption (Advanced Encryption Standard) which is the same standard usd by governments to protect top secret information.
Encryption converts information that is readable into a mixture of unreadable characters. Decryption processes the encrypted unreadable characters back into a readable format.
The algorithm that encrypts and decrypts the information is known as a cipher. The cipher allows access to the readable information when you enter a password.
Most ciphers will use passwords that are four to eight characters in length, but a 128-bit AES cipher uses a 16 character password which is extremely difficult to hack.
The AES cipher or "Rijndael" (pronounced Rein Dahl) is named after the Belgian inventors Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen.
Biometric authentication is a technology that recognizes physical or behavioral characteristics such as fingerprints, palm geometry, retina patterns, voice and signature. Fingerprint recognition is the most popular because it's easier to use.
Your finger is scanned for minutia, which are the points on a fingerprint where a ridge ends or splits into two. An algorithm extracts the minutia points and creates a template image that is used for authentication.

digital pen is a computer invention that transmits writing into digital media.

This digital pen is a computer invention that transmits writing into digital media.
Although touch screen devices represent a movement away from paper, approximately eighty-percent of businesses still use paper based forms.
Many professions hand-write their notes, tables, diagrams and drawings instead of using tablets or other devices.

The computer pen is comparable to a regular ink pen (even uses refillable ink) that writes on regular paper, except it has an optical reader that records motion, images and coordinates. The recorded data is then transmitted to a computer via a wireless transmitter.
You can browse and edit your written notes, diagrams, tables, or drawings.
Another useful feature of this computer invention is that hand-written digital files can be easily converted into text fonts for use in word documents or emails.
Digital pen technology was first developed by the Swedish inventor and entrepreneur Christer Fåhraues.
Fåhraues is a physician and has an honorary doctorate degree in technology from Lund University in Sweden, and a M.Sc. degree in Bioengineering from the University of California San Diego.
Fåhraues served as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Anoto Group AB, a company he originally founded in 1996 as C Technologies to license his digital pen technology.
This computer invention has been licensed to companies around the world for various commercial products. Applications include data/signature capture, completing forms, mapping, surveying, document management, paper replay, whiteboards, toys and education.
There are great expectations for digital pen technology over the next few years.

A House that Walks

A new prototype house walked around the campus of the Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire, England.

The eco-friendly house is powered by solar cells and minature windmills, and comes with a kitchen, a composting toilet, a system for collecting rain water, one bed, a wood stove for CO2 neutral heating, a rear opening that forms a stairway entrance, and six legs.
A collaborative effort between MIT and the Danish design collective N55, the house walks about five kilometers an hour similar to the walking speed of a human.
The legs reguire a software algorithm to calculate the movement and position of the legs to provide stability over varying terrain.
The house can turn, move forward or backwards, or change height as required and can be programmed with GPS waypoints for traveling to destinations.

Vein Identification

Another technology innovation is the biometric identification and security device known as PalmSecure.
It works by identifying the vein pattern in the palms of our hands.
Similar to our fingerprints, vein patterns are unique to each individual. The purported advantages of this technology is that it is less expensive, easier to manage, and is more reliable than traditional methods of identification.

Air Into Water

Johathan Ritchey has invented the Watermill, which is an atmospheric water generator. It converts air into fresh water.

This latest technology invention produces fresh water at a cost of about 3 cents a liter (1 quart). Originally designed for areas that do not have clean drinking water, the Watermill is for households that prefer an eco-friendly, cost effective alternative to bottled water.

Atmospheric water generators convert air into water when the temperature of the air becomes saturated with enough water vapor that it begins to condense (dew point).

"What is unique about the Watermill is that it has intelligence," says Ritche. This makes the appliance more efficient. It samples the air every 3 minutes to determine the most efficient time to convert the air into water.

It will also tell you when to change the carbon filter and will shut itself off if it cannot make pure clean water.