I'm more than what i was...
Posted on 04/06/2005 2:47:51 PM PDT by Callahan
LONDON (Reuters) - If you think video games are engrossing now, just wait: PlayStation maker Sony Corp (SNE.N). has been granted a patent for beaming sensory information directly into the brain.
The technique could one day be used to create videogames in which you can smell, taste, and touch, or to help people who are blind or deaf.
The U.S. patent, granted to Sony researcher Thomas Dawson, describes a technique for aiming ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to induce "sensory experiences" such as smells, sounds and images.
"The pulsed ultrasonic signal alters the neural timing in the cortex," the patent states. "No invasive surgery is needed to assist a person, such as a blind person, to view live and/or recorded images or hear sounds."
According to New Scientist magazine, the first to report on the patent, Sony's technique could be an improvement over an existing non-surgical method known as transcranial magnetic stimulation. This activates nerves using rapidly changing magnetic fields, but cannot be focused on small groups of brain cells.
Niels Birbaumer, a neuroscientist at the University of Tuebingen in Germany, told New Scientist he had looked at the Sony patent and "found it plausible." Birbaumer himself has developed a device that enables disabled people to communicate by reading their brain waves.
A Sony Electronics spokeswoman told the magazine that no experiments had been conducted, and that the patent "was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us."
Ping
I can't wait to for them to zap my brain like this.
Wasn't that the invention of the Riddler in Batman Forever?
Yes, but that worked in reverse.
As much as I like my video games, having them beamed into my skull is a little too much for me. I'll stick with the television, thanks.
Be cool if it could beam the last 2 years of my degree into my head...here's you Diploma...please pay at the door on the way out...
Will a tinfoil hat help keep them out of my head?
Wouldn't it be ironic if it turned out that tinfoil hats really would prevent people from beaming information directly into our brains?
Think criminal misuse and making people see and hear what you want.
And of course the Chinese will pioneer the tech to brainwash people.
Is anyone else reminded of the "holodeck" from Star Trek TNG? Not to mention blind Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge's visor?
One word...
PORN!
No longer is Big Brother watching you, he's forcing you to watch him. This technology has untold potential for abuse.
"Wouldn't it be ironic if it turned out that tinfoil hats really would prevent people from beaming information directly into our brains?"
You mean, ...they ...don't?? Oh. I ...I ..., never mind.
"A Sony Electronics spokeswoman told the magazine that no experiments had been conducted, and that the patent "was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us."
They can patent a device they have never even tried out? How do the patent examiners evaluate such a thing? Crap, I'm going to send them my plans for a warp drive so I can get the jump on Sony. And my levitating ray gun. And my mind reading scope. And my crystal ball. Just in case they "may someday be the direction that technology will take us." Wow!
Nah. The "holodeck" was Real Stuff, and Geodi's visor attached to surgically implanted connectors (that of course blinked red).
This Nerd Moment brought to you by the letters T and V.
Dual use technology? Imagine military applications.
Much more like that in "Brainstorm." Except it went both ways in Brainstorm.
Exactly. It really pisses me off to see patents granted without a workable prototype or reasonable experiments backing it up. This is actually much better than some I've heard about and is at least mofderately specific about the methods to be used, but sheesh. How iwll it encourage research/creativity if other researchers abandon steps in this direction since he'll have the patent if they do the work?
You know, back in 1904 someone should have patented the idea of heavier than air, engine-powered flight. Then they could have sat back and let the Wirghts do the work only to miss out on the royalties....
Yeah, this is great. You just patent anything you think someone might get to work someday and when they build it, you sue them and take it away from them. Wudd a country!
I bet I can guess what the second (civilian) use of this technology will be. The first will be a prototype video game, perhaps a first-person shooter. The second almost certainly will be virtual-reality sex.
This must be that whole "patent approval for large corporations with lotsa money for political contributions" loophole..
Only applies to the likes of Microsoft, the Motion Picture and Music Industries, Automotive Industry, and other large Contributors... err.. Corporations..
Beat me to it. This is absolutely ridiculous and a perfect example of how a bad patent system stifles innovation rather than encouraging it. There are dozens of examples of "prior art" for this sort of thing in science fiction; sure, the authors never actually created the technology, but neither did Sony.
I'm more than what i was...
Zowie.. Arthur C. Clark just called..
He needs a lawyer to sue all those communications satellite manufacturers..
Mmmmmmm. Big money.. Lotsa litigation..
PORN!
Yep! The first person who can take this technology and create the "sensory experience" of actually having sex will become a billionaire.
If you can alter brain function, you can shut it down.
This is a killing weapon.
You beat me to it. Great movie.
Grow up kid, this isn't for children who don't have control over their horomones. Find some other forum to post that. No one wants to hear what you do in your free time.
I bet there's some guy running to the nearest patent attorney right now. Uh, see you folks later! Gotta go!
Or mind control device..
If you can affect/control the cerebellum you can affect/control the cortex..
Oh ok newbie I'll listen to you..
What does the word porn, upset you?
Poor thing.
"Brainster" ... Download Video & Music directly to the brain..
The first commercially successful application will be pornography.
Thanks for your list - right now I'm reading "Blood Music" by Greg Bear.
Can't count how many Sci fi - cyber punk novels I've read where this very thing happens.. people become addicted to it. What if they could directly manipulate the pleasure centers of the brain.. talk about porn...
One book I read called them button-heads and they would hook up and forget to eat or bathe and would wither. What the hell was the title of that book...
Vinge's 2nd concept, IA ( Intelligence Amplification ) seems to agree with this article's scenario...
While AI has been stalled out and may be a dead end for decades to come, IA may have a future..
With IA, the human provide the "intelligence", or the conscious, creative mind that controls and directs..
Technology "simply" enhances the abilities and powers of the controlling intellect..
The scary thing there is, the outcome of such advancement depends entirely on human morality, and adherence to concepts of right and wrong..
How do you know they aren't... right now? After all, there's no way to prove that what we see and hear, etc. is real. For all a person can know, what we call "reality" may be no more "real" than a dream. Dreams seem "real" to the dreamer. Is it possible to prove one isn't dreaming at any given moment?
Of course it isn't. This is the major logical flaw in scientism and materialism, by the way: materialists believe that only things that can be observed by the senses (and measured, in the case of scientism) are real -- but of course there is no way to know for sure if our observations and measurements truly correspond to a "real" outside Universe at all. The senses can be fooled; we cannot know anything for certain by means of our fallible senses alone.
Yet one can "hear oneself think" even when one is deaf; one can "see with the mind's eye" even if one is blind. From the experiences of persons who have been confined to sensory-deprivation tanks, we know that one cannot see, hear, feel, taste, or touch anything in such a tank -- yet the sensory-deprived person does nt cease to exist. He continues to experience his own existence without using any of his senses. He hears his own thoughts; his mind's eye is as bright as ever -- he is awake, aware, and conscious of his own being. With this in mind, we know that at least one thing exists that cannot be observed: the human mind. Therefore, the only thing that we can know for certain is that which we know a priori, without the use of the senses, by direct experience: our own existence. The eye and ear can be fooled, but not the mind; as long as we can "hear ourselves think, we exist. "I think, therefore I am."
One cannot honestly state that "the universe outside of my own consciousness exists"; the best an honest man can do is to admit that "I believe the Universe outside of my own consciousness exists". This statement of faith has formed the basis of all rational thought in the West from the time of Aristotle until recently. We each accept the existence of reality outside ourselves on the basis of a system of faith. And since we all must adopt some system of faith in order to live, the only question that remains is which system of faith to live by.
This is ultrasound. You will need to wear a cardboard box on top of your tinfoil hat.
OK.. you can go back to the Matrix now.. ;oP~~~
"Death ray, fiddlesticks! It doesn't even slow them up!"
It won't cook your brain like Microwaves, but it will clean the electrodes in your brain.
No, tinfoil would be "stannic," steel foil hats would be "ironic."
OTOH, "tinfoil" is usually made of aluminum, so maybe we should just say it would be "aluminic."
Morpheus?
Is that you?
Should I take the red or green pill?
Next step: Pinging threads directly into the heads of folks on your ping list.
Do you "Brainhoo?"
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