While our Indiegogo campaign has ended, we continue to receive emails from people around the world asking about Muse. Specifically, “now that Muse pre-orders have finished, is there a waiting list I can be added to for 2013?”
We recently started a Muse newsletter to keep everyone updated, and encourage anyone interested in product availability in 2013 to subscribe. It’s free, we don’t spam, and you can opt-out at any time! You’re able to sign up for that here.
This week in our BCI industry news roundup, two news stories that captured our imaginations. A team at Northeastern University has received a grant to build a new type of brainwave monitor; Carnegie Mellon University is asking manufacturers to start considering augmented reality in cars.
1// Grant for a better brainwave monitor
Professor Srinivas Sridhar, of Northeastern University, has received a $50,000 grant to help develop a better brainwave monitor. The research project, “Roadmap to Commercialization for Electric Field Encephalography” has been given the grant being back by the National Science Foundation. The grant will help to develop a new brain signal measurement signal, that will also be full portable, cost effective, and with a high spatial ability. Professor Sridhar will be using EFEG, Electric Field Encephalography, (goes to PDF paper) which is a new technique for measuring signals in the brain from a significant distance.
While a government-backed research initiative, the impact of EFEG research is expected to have substantial benefit in day-to-day life. One possible example is in responsive medical applications such as epilepsy monitoring.
2// AR Cars
Carnegie Mellon University is advocating for the use of augmented reality to support safe driving habits. If this seems counter intuitive, many researchers are looking for ways to give drivers enhanced forms of information, and believe this can actually make the roads safer. The types of information could range from driving directions, social applications or, if the driver were sleepy, hotels in the area. The notion of augmented reality ecosystems in cars builds on the common HUD (heads-up displays) that started to appear in cars in the mid-1990s, that may have been used in high-end models for things such as projections onto the windshield.
Augmented reality in cars will take this one step further, and the team at Carnegie Mellon believe it will have an especially significant impact on elderly drivers. Standard Digital reported, saying:
“This kind of innovation would be helpful to any driver. But Professor Dey [Carnegie Mellon] and his team believe it could be especially useful for older people, whose sense of spatial awareness may be reduced. This is especially problematic when they must look down at a navigation system, for example.”
—
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.
