From San Francisco, San Diego, and now Paris; we’ve had an exciting, jet-setting and cat filled week! On Tuesday our CEO Ariel Garten will be keynoting and demoing Muse at Le Web 2012. This year’s theme is The Internet of Things. How big is the market size of the ‘internet of things’? Le Web will bring together a some of the biggest and brightest from around the world to discuss this week Dec 4th to 6th.
In case you missed it: we released episode 2 of BRAIN CAT on November 30th, our wacky and meme filled mockumentary of a cat gone wild with a Mini Muse. We reveal the hysterical conclusion tomorrow, December 3rd.
This week in this, our last industry news roundup of our Indiegogo Muse campaign: is the speed of business adoption for human computer interfaces one of its biggest hurdles to innovation? And BrainGate2 opens up clinical trials in the United States with Stanford University
1// The speed of innovation lags behind business adoption
There’s lots of excitement about new user interfaces hitting the market in 2013. Gesture, voice, brainwave-controlled; interfaces that are said to be more “human” and intuitive. But there are major hurdles to overcome before we get to a point comparable to where the desktop computer is now. One is the speed of business adoption.
An interesting article in Computer World concluded that new technologies are ready for primetime, while others are not. Voice recognition, and gesture interfaces, could be ushering in a new phase. Some difficult technologies include eye tracking, brainwave controlled interfaces.
One takeaway? “The real power isn’t that any of these new approaches is perfect,” says Henry Holtzman, who heads the MIT Media Lab’s Information Ecology group. “But together they can allow us to have a much more human experience, where the technology is approaching us on our terms, instead of us having to learn how to use the technology.”
What do you think? Do you agree?
2// BrainGate moves to next phase with nation wide clinical trials
Stanford University are one of several across the United States to open enrollment for national clinical trails for BrainGate2 in time for 2013. The ongoing trials will research thought controlled computing, robotic arms and assistive devices for quadriplegic patients. The university announced this along with breakthrough research linking nerve centers in the brain to thought controlled computing.
The Stanford team – Vikash Gilja, Krishna Shenoy and Paul Nuyujukian – created an algorithm called ReFit. Using ReFit, rhesus monkeys were able to move a virtual cursor across a computer screen, without a computer mouse, using thought alone. After moving the cursor, the monkeys were able to focus the cursor at a specific point on the screen for 15 seconds.
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The InteraXon news roundup is published weekly, every Sunday night, to recap trends and breaking news in the world of brain computer interfaces and thought controlled computing. Do you have a story you’d like to submit or share? Contact us at info@interaxon.ca (subject line “News Story”) or leave a comment here.
