"These are not the droids you are looking for"

Original post:  Jul 21, 2015

Star Wars fans may remember that phrase as the first demonstration of the Jedi mind trick. While it may seem that mind-reading is still in the realm of science fiction, there is actually a significant amount of research on the topic.

This article from the Telegraph discusses an interesting futuristic product:

A scalextric powered by the mind is the latest product to make use of our brainwaves. Stephen Sigurnjak, senior lecturer in electronics at the University of Central Lancashire, has built a scalextric where the cars are powered by the players’ level of concentration.

“You brain works off electrical activity, a bit like a computer,” he says. “As you concentrate on something, it fires neurons in the brain.”

Here is some video of the actual product in action:

While it may seem like this is merely a toy, there are some demonstrated use cases for the product:

Though the scalextric is fun, there are plan to use mind-control power in far more sophisticated ways. “If you’ve had an accident or are paralysed then your brain could still work even if your body couldn’t. There’s quite a lot of research that goes into that area, and trying to control things just by thinking about them,” says Dr Sigurnjak. “The goal would be that you could think about turning left in a wheelchair and automatically turn left. And in the future you might be able to translate your thoughts. So you could think about what you want to write and a computer would type it out.”

The technology could also be used to measure stress in high-stress jobs so that if a pilot, for example, seemed to be overloaded and at risk of making an error, then someone else could step in to help.

Here is a link to the full article:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11731830/Why-mind-reading-is-a-science-not-a-magic-trick.html