Start your summer by joining the world renowned InteraXon staff! We’re looking to introduce a new developer to fun and innovative family.  You’ll be helping to build consumer-ready brainwave enabled applications. If you are technically savvy; a seasoned developer; good with tight deadlines; an expert at project management; and like working with a team of fun creative people who happen to be the best in their field…keep reading after the jump to learn more and how to apply!
Job Title: Rock-Star Developer and Team Lead

Summary: We need an exceptional coder who loves challenges and makes insanely good things that people love and use often. You’ll be building and leading a tight team of genius developers in creating the applications that will make thought-controlled computing a part of people’s everyday lives.

Description of role and tasks:
•    Development of a cross-platform applications (including iOS and Android) using a revolutionary new human-computer interface
•    Executing a complex software development project from planning through delivery and maintenance and upgrades
•    Working closely with interaction & interface designers to create magnetic, engaging experiences on the mobile platform
•    Working closely with engineering, research and neuroscience teams to ensure that all aspects of the product are fully integrated
•    Building a flexible team of developers to handle future software development efforts
•    Managing all software developers and development efforts.
•    Reporting directly to CTO & Executive team
Qualities and experience:
•    Strong Coder in all languages: Python, C, Ruby, Objective C, C++, Java, Android, iPhone, etc.
•    Experience with the following:
◦    cloud-based applications
◦    real-time signal processing
◦    mobile application development
◦    encryption
◦    mobile gaming
◦    user-interface & interaction development
•    Loves programming and programming languages
•    Strong understanding of how to deliver magnetic, engaging experiences on the mobile platform
•    Exceptional track record creating solid, successful applications

If interested: please send your resume to jobs@interaxon.ca with “Developer” in the subject line

Major world leaders are starting to invest in brain computer interfaces, neural research, and neurotechnology. The human brain has become the symbol for a new frontier in innovation. Our investment in continuing neural research is a commitment to cultural wealth, education, global infrastructure, and economy. By investing in brain research, we invest in the future of our society.

1// InteraXon at Founders 50

This has been a jet setting week of conference appearances and keynotes for InteraXon. Over the weekend Ariel was in Hawaii for Founders 50, as one of 50 hand picked entrepreneurs at the invite-only event to discuss the future of technology. When interviewed by Inc.com, one of the hosts of the conference (Scott Nolan) described the event like this: “The general idea is that there are people in tech that are pretty likely to find the future.”

After Hawaii, it’s back to Toronto to attend OCE Discovery. Then, off to Montreal for a keynote presentation at Le Boule De Cristal (The Crystal Ball Conference) on May 15^th. Le Boule De Cristal brings together business and information technology for a day as Quebec’s leading IT conference.

2// Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Ontario Brain Institute

On May 9^th, Israeli President Shimon Peres made a rare speaking engagement at the Ritz-Carlton in Toronto to discuss new frontiers in brain research. The event, hosted by the Ontario Brain Institute (OBI), Baycrest, and Canada-Israel Industrial R&D Foundation (CIIRDF), was inspired by President Peres’ passion for brain research and his desire to see Israel as a leader in neurotechnology. The speaker panel also included Dr. Peter Carlen, an InteraXon collaborator who spoke on epilepsy home monitoring systems.

Read the full press release here

3// Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Invest in Wearable BCI Temporary Tattoo

In a move to support global health innovation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced it’s financial support for a project lead by Professor Todd Coleman of UC San Diego. That project is a wearable BCI temporary tattoo the size of a postage stamp. The wearable BCI is designed to record patient information like blood flow or body temperature, and can also be used by doctors in remote locations to help administer medications. Professor Coleman is not new to the world of wearable technology, and has been leading a multidisciplinary team to develop this device for over 18 months.

Read the full press release from UC San Diego here

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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!

There is an exciting trend developing in 2012. New algorithms for brain computer interface devices, that will benefit future medical patients, have also been some of the most-shared online news items in neuroscience over the past few months. While many of these devices have been in development for years – some, for over a decade – it seems like this technology has finally found it’s time and voice.

1// The Race For The First Commercial Bionic Eye

A few weeks ago on our Twitter account, we shared a news piece about researchers at Monash University in Australia. Discovery News had reported on their innovative work creating a computer chip which could potentially help the blind regain sight. This would be done with the assistance of wireless glasses synced with the users’ brain waves, and then transmitted from the implanted chip. More than a month later, a similarly inspiring story from Oxford Eye Hospital, where a team has implanted the first 3mm microchip to restore limited vision in two (previously) blind patients. The microchip has been in development for close to a decade, and was “switched on” this month in these two patients for the first time.

The results from both stories are awe-inspiring. Read more here

2// New Vernacular To Talk About BCI: A “Natural User Interface”

In a recent article on Midsize Insider, a small business thought leadership blog, author Deborah Aks suggests the term ‘natural user interface’ to describe future human – computer exchanges. Similar to this analogy below:

“Just 15 years ago, it was not hard to find people unfamiliar with using a computer mouse (as I discovered when teaching students computer-based classes). Today, this would be unheard of. Both young and old are intimately familiar and at ease with the mouse, so much so that the word “mouse,” easily conjures up an impression of a computer device rather than a rodent”

I suspect we will see more news articles like this in abundance. The distinction between current technical limitations, to future objectives and their applications, are necessary along with a vernacular to discuss them. A generally accepted social definition that allows these interfaces to permeate our day-to-day vocabulary with ease, such as the computer mouse has for the last 15 years. These are necessary as brain computer interfaces become commercially viable, and start with suggestions like the one from Aks’.

Read the full article here

3// New Algorithms Can Distinguish Between Different Mental States in Sleep

Some amazing innovations are happening in the Mediterranean Sea. The University of Malta has formed a small team of researchers to study and write new algorithms for brain computer interfaces. The team (Owen Falzon, Tracey Camilleri, and Kenneth Camilleri) have found ways to distinguish between a users different mental states in the various stages of sleep. Two of the phases of activity this new algorithm can detect are a sleep spindle and K complex, but the difference from other sleep labelling practices is that it labels in real time.

Read more here

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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 Roundup”) or leave a comment here.

We continue to innovate with brain computer interface technology, and various neuroprostheses that utilize it, and we also learn more about ourselves and how our brains work. These innovations push the limits of what we previously believed to be physically possible, and like the news features below: continually redefine our understanding of the word “impossible”.

1// A New Study On Meditation, EEG, and Executive Control

A contained study, conducted by two researchers Teper and Inzlicht in Ontario, looks at why meditation enhances executive control and its underlying mechanisms. The study collected results from both meditators and non-meditator participants. Aiming to discuss how mediation can manifest in the brain and how it can be used to benefit performance monitoring, the study came away with some interesting (and unexpected) results from both types of participants.

Read more here and here

2// Neuroethics in the Huffington Post

A popular and widely shared article in The Huffington Post this week, Neuroethics: Whose Mind Is It Anyway?, discussed the sticky grey area of neuroethics and neuroprostheses. This topic has been getting more traction in popular culture, consistently focusing on very Orwellian fears about brain computer interfaces and how they will impact a free society. To quote the article:

“Reading a person’s thoughts, implanting machinery into man, and augmenting our neural processing powers with cognitive enhancers are all matters of neuroethics. They bring us face to face with questions about who has access to powerful new technologies and for what purposes.”

The articles raises some interesting questions, especially regarding the ethics of use of this technology. It is important to keep the public engaged and involved in a transparent dialogue as we continue to innovate. However, there is one distinction that the authors miss which is important for the public to know and understand. As we mentioned in our news roundup last week, reading and transcribing a persons “brain noise” (aka mind control) is not probable or possible, nor is it what this technologies’ mechanisms allow for.

Read the full article in Huffington Post here

And this weeks roundup also includes some exciting announcements!

3// Bypassing Spinal Cord Injury With BCI Could Lead To Other Medical Discoveries

Hot in the news, and on Twitter, the past two weeks has been this amazing news item: a team of scientists at Northwestern University (Chicago) have found a way to bypass spinal cord injury using brain computer interfaces and neuroprosthesis. Not only does this research provide amazing new insight into the nervous system, and how neural data can be transmitted for a paraplegic with a human-computer interface, but leaves hope for people with conditions such as Parkinsons.

Read more here

4// Who Holds The Guinness World Record For “Heaviest Machine Moved With A Brain Control Interface?”

Two colleagues at Loughborough Design School have broken the Guinness World Record for Heaviest Machine Moved With A Brain Control Interface. In a word: Wow! Dr Darren Southee and Dr Guy Bingham successfully picked up a car with a crane while using a EEG-based Neurosky headset. Congratulations!

Read the full press release here

Big on the brain this week is the future. Of thought controlled computing applications and technologies. Of their usage and consumption in consumer culture as a whole. This week in the news roundup we feature 3 different predictions, from 3 different industry sources, on the direction of human-computer intersections. The first is a feature interview with thoughts from InteraXon directly. The second envisions a pace and direction in which this technology might continue to develop. And the third is about the future of how we talk, and will talk, about this realm in the decades to come.

1// InteraXon Featured in SCOPE Magazine

SCOPE is “a magazine focused on presenting the best new ideas from thinkers around the world” and we are extremely excited to be featured in their latest issue! Abby Plener talked to our fearless leader and CEO Ariel Garten about InteraXon. Abby really dived into what inspires Ariel about thought controlled computing, some challenges InteraXon has faced, and her predictions as this technology continues to evolve.

Read the full interview here

And speaking of industry forecasts….

2// New Information Emerges About fMRI and Transcribing ‘brain noise’

Reports on the forward moving progress of – and visions for the future of – supposed “mind reading” technologies, are in an abundance. Even IBM has thrown cards on the table, with a prediction that 2017 be the year this technology will see wide-spread application in computers. Researchers in the field of fMRI have challenged and even potentially blown these forecasts out of the water, in a recent article in IEEE Spectrum.

The article interviews top researchers and investigators in the field, and makes one very important distinction from other editorials on this topic: this technology will not lead to mind control or thought monitoring. Rather, we are still discovering it’s applications and to make a prediction about the future of so-called “mind control” is irresponsible at best.

Read more here

3// Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano Offers Summer Courses in HCC

A ground breaking research program and summer school series is being offered this summer in Milan, Italy, about human-technology intersections and confluences.

The program is a question and participant-driven course which centres around the discipline of Human Computer Confluences (HCC). It is also incredibly interdisciplinary, combining neuroscience, computer sciences, the arts, and other fields to “examine new modalities” and perceptions in the realm of human-computer relationships. For individuals interested in examining the ongoing impact of technologies like brain computer interfaces, this course may shape our dialogue for years to come.

To top it all off, there is no registration fee, and the school offers child-care options for student parents! Interested to learn more? Click here

Be sure to check back next week for another news roundup!

We’re kicking off a new season with a new series of weekly News Round Ups! Every week we’ll select cool and exciting industry announcements to talk about in-depth here on the blog. Many thought-controlled computing developments are quickly becoming consumer ready, and InteraXon had the pleasure of testing out a few this past year. Is 2012 the year for wearable BCI fashion, skateboards, driver- less shopping carts and more? Keep reading to find out.

1// The Gadget Live Show 2012 Debuts Consumer-Ready BCI Spring Fashion

Two consumer-ready brain computer interface fashions debuted at the annual consumer technology convention, Gadget Show Live, in the International Tech Zone. Neurowear’s ‘Necomimi’ is a wearable (and very cute) thought controlled headset in the shape of animal ears. The convention also featured the debut of the Mechapolypse brain computer interface fashion line, from designer Nange Magros

Some very lucky InteraXon staff were offered an early sneak peek to Necomimi this year and had a hand in its testing. The headset is currently available for commercial use in Japan, or for special order online. For those that don’t know, the Necomimi headset is a standalone device which utilizes your brainwaves to express emotion through the animal-like ears attached to the headset. Read more here

Nange Magros’ Mechapolypse showcases a shape changing dress utilizing brain computer interface and NeuroSky technology. The outer layer of the dress is designed to conceal electronic components and fibre optics, which turn on and sync with user levels of concentration. Read more here

2// Ottawa Gaming Conference To Highlight Thought Controlled Games

InteraXon friends and colleagues at Fuel Youth will be co-hosting the 1^st Annual Ottawa Gaming Conference on May 29^th at the Ottawa Convention Centre. The conference will feature an evening reception to highlight innovations happening in thought controlled gaming (as reported by Neurogadget and Gamasutra earlier this month). The Ottawa Gaming Conference aims to highlight achievements and advances in the gaming industry, and primarily innovations happening in Ottawa.

Read more here, and the unofficial press release here

3// Chaotic Moon Labs “The Board of Imagination” Takes Flight

Texas-based research center Chaotic Moon Labs has recently unveiled The Board of Imagination. This thought-controlled skateboard uses an Emotiv headset, and integrates technology from a previous product the company was testing. That former product development was an automated and driver-less shopping cart which also scanned grocery bar codes for the purchaser. Representatives from Chaotic Moon haven’t said what this skateboard will be used for; it’s anticipated that the company will continue to debut beta products like the Board of Imagination, on an ongoing basis, for the foreseeable future.

Read more here

Please Note: The misnomer ‘mind control’ used in the news coverage of the Board of Imagination story, and associated implications of that terms in reference to brain computer interface innovations, is not endorsed by InteraXon.

We’re expanding our team with 2 new positions in 2012, and what better way to start off the year than by joining the world renowned InteraXon staff!

If you are technically savvy; a seasoned developer; good with tight deadlines; an expert at project management; and like working with a team of fun creative people who happen to be the best in their field…keep reading after the jump to learn more and how to apply!

Job Title: Rock-Star Developer and Team Lead

Summary: We need an exceptional coder who loves challenges and makes insanely good things that people love and use often. You’ll be building and leading a tight team of genius developers in creating the applications that will make thought-controlled computing a part of people’s everyday lives.

Description of role and tasks:
•    Development of a cross-platform applications (including iOS and Android) using a revolutionary new human-computer interface
•    Executing a complex software development project from planning through delivery and maintenance and upgrades
•    Working closely with interaction & interface designers to create magnetic, engaging experiences on the mobile platform
•    Working closely with engineering, research and neuroscience teams to ensure that all aspects of the product are fully integrated
•    Building a flexible team of developers to handle future software development efforts
•    Managing all software developers and development efforts.
•    Reporting directly to CTO & Executive team
Qualities and experience:
•    Strong Coder in all languages: Python, C, Ruby, Objective C, C++, Java, Android, iPhone, etc.
•    Experience with the following:
◦    cloud-based applications
◦    real-time signal processing
◦    mobile application development
◦    encryption
◦    mobile gaming
◦    user-interface & interaction development
•    Loves programming and programming languages
•    Strong understanding of how to deliver magnetic, engaging experiences on the mobile platform
•    Exceptional track record creating solid, successful application

If interested: please send your resume to jobs@interaxon.ca with “Team Lead” in the subject line

Job Title: Interaction Designer

Summary: You are a white hot designer who eats sleeps and breathes user experience. You have a track record of creating (and shipping!) beautiful, emotionally resonant designs that people actually use, and have experience in interaction design, user interface design, graphic design, mobile app design on iphone, ipad and android platforms. You are going to be creating the language of brainwave-based interaction, and working with a team of genius developers and engineers to realize that language in innovative, magnetic products.

Description of role and tasks:
•    Responsible for the end-to-end development of the user experience from the purchase through to the product including
•    Assets
•    Experience Flow
•    Metaphors & inconography
•    Audio / Music
•    Product Management – understanding target markets and developing features that appeal to those markets
•    Developing a language that will define all future brainwave interactions
•    Work with external collaborators to realize your vision

Qualities and experience:
•    Insanely good designer
•    Have designed multiple successful applications for mobile platforms
•    Extraordinary graphic design skills
•    Outstanding ability in motion graphic design
•    Skilled in communication in all media (web, video, print, product, applications)
•    Passionate about human-computer interaction and how technology can enhance and improve the experience of self
•    Experienced in developing winning applications that connect with targeted markets
•    Has the ability to create products with the power to significantly change consumer behaviour
•    Portfolio of magnetic, emotional, compelling designs and applications that have gone to market and shown traction

If interested: please send your resume to jobs@interaxon.ca with “Interaction Designer” in the subject line

One beauty in the design of BCI projects is the “learning” part of the project – the process of machine learning is one of the most compelling discussion topics we see in this field. How do we get the computer and the brain to operate synergistically?  While you might not succeed at teaching a machine how to do your holiday shopping this year, here’s some interesting BCI news we received lately from the UK.

1/ GeekCon 2011: What can you do with an Emotiv EPOC headset?

Some highlights from the seventh annual GeekCon, the exclusive creative gathering run by three Israeli technology entrepreneurs — Ilan Graicer, Eden Shochat, and Nimrod Lehavi – were published in the December 2011 issue of Wired Magazine (UK) this week. Nimrod (pictured), a software developer, played around with the Emotiv EPOC headset.

What he found: After writing a program to capture Emotiv’s outputs as keystrokes on a laptop and transmitting them as commands connected to a remote and toy car, the circuitry could handle simple directions (forward, back, left, right). The system had trouble distinguishing particular emotions, but an “I hate you”  - caused the car to speed away. Lesson? Road rage might help out with hands-free commuting.

Other tech projects that explored out-of-the-box thinking included: robots that shoot tomatoes, and a beer cooler you play like an instrument. See for yourself here.

2/ Simulation-based model of a limb on motor imagery BCI reveals insight into BCI use for paralysed individuals

In the social discussions that take place on the web around this field, we’re always listening to what bright curious minds are getting up to. Recently, a student from The University of the West of England shared with us his EEG based BCI research out of Bristol. And sharing is caring!

It is understood that similar brain areas are activated when a physical movement is watched, as when it is being made by the same individual. The firing of these “mirror neurons” (used in Ramachandran’s Mirror Neuron Therapy on paralysed individuals), inspired a novel pilot study at UWE. Using the BCI2VR system developed by Dr. Ou Bi, the team tested the effect of a simulated limb on motor imagery-based BCI. Participants were provided with an identical moving arm rather than their own, and it created a faster and more accurate EEG model of their motor imagery.

The application? “If the results of the experiment are valid, then we could have a very simple and inexpensive way of training paralysed individuals to use a BCI”. Simon Oxenham contributes to the Neurobonkers blog, and the full research report is available here.

To wrap up the news, keep an eye out for InteraXon at Macau IT Week!

A video has appeared of a group of hackers who claim to have created a brainwave-to-siri interface that can recognize 25 individual commands with just a few electrodes on the forehead.

A still from Project Black Mirror's hoax video

This video is a hoax (and I’ll explain why at the end of this post) but unfortunately that won’t stop it from being widely reported and believed as fact. The media is all too easily fooled where brain-computer interface technology is concerned. For some reason, whenever a story involves brainwaves, reporters turn off their BS detectors.

This is why we are so careful, in our dealings with the media, to speak accurately about the potential of this technology, and to be candid about its limitations. Any slight misrepresentation will be echoed and amplified as the story propagates through the social web.

We have to work incredibly hard to get accurate information about EEG into the world, struggling against the innacurate and negatively stereotyped images of science fiction that have convinced people that we are either evil geniuses looking to steal people’s thoughts or miracle workers able to know the unknowable.

Lieutenant Tom Paris experiences a negatively stereotyped brain-computer interface in Star Trek: Voyager

While the perpetrators of this hoax are probably having a great laugh at the credulous horde of bloggers reposting this story, what these “jokers” fail to understand is how this hoax damages that work of thousands of hard-working entrepreneurs and researchers around the world who are working to bring this disruptive technology to the market.

Because of this hoax, and its inevitable viral spread, the first five minutes of every conversation I have about thought-controlled computing is going to be spent debunking this video, and trying to roll back the expectations. Every time I sit down with an investor, a potential partner or a reporter, I am going to have to carefully deconstruct the impossible expectations this video has created in their head.

In the movie Firefox, Clint Eastwood flies a plane that responds to mental commands -- in russian!

But my inconvenience is nothing compared to the anguish caused in families who have a loved one in a ‘locked-in’ or vegetative state. A hoax like this gives them false hope, as they dream of getting their father or sister back, only to find out later that this technology is still years away.  Toying with people’s emotions in this way is grossly unacceptable.

So now let me turn to the matter at hand: Debunking Project Black Mirror

There are many problems with this project, from inaccurate statements about EEG, obviously inoperable circuits, impossible claims and more. I’ll break the down here:

Innacurate Statements about EEG

Typical brainwave (EEG) recordings in various conscious states.

On the Project Black Mirror page, they say the following:

1. ECG pads provide raw skin conductivity / electrical activity as analogue data (0-5v).

2. This is plugged into the Arduino board via 4 analogue inputs (no activity = 0v, high activity = 5v).

This is problematic for a number of reasons. First, and most obviously, ECG stands for Electrocardiography, which is the measurement of the electrical activity of the heart. EEG is Electroencephalography, which is the measurement of the electrical activity of the brain.

Second, they describe, and the pictures show them plugging the sensors into the arduino directly, and measuring the signals as 0v-5v. Unfortunately, EEG signals are measured in microvolts. They must be amplified using very sensitive, low-noise amplifiers before they can be converted into digital signals. There is no way they could detect any meaningful brainwave signals through that setup.

Obviously non-functional circuit

A close-up of the circuit board reveals that the SpeakJet chip isn't connected to anything.

One of the most obvious giveaways that this is a fake is the picture of their circuit board. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of electronics can see that they have placed the Speech Synthesis chip onto the breadboard sideways. As pictured, the chip is entirely non-functional. All of the pins are shorted to each other. This has been pointed out in other places around the net.

Impossible Claims

Again from Project Black Mirror:

4. Josh trained the program by  thinking of the main Siri commands (“Call”, “Set”, “Diary” etc.) one at a time and the program where we  captured the signature brain patterns they produce.

5. The program can detect the signature patterns that indicate a certain word is being thought of. The program will  then wait for a natural ‘release’ in brain waves and assume the chain of commands is now complete and action is required.

This is where things get really ridiculous.

To understand this we should talk about what is possible with brainwaves. There are a number of signals that can be detected from the head.

The Neurosky MindWave is a commercially available single sensor EEG headset.

With a single electrode, you can detect the basic types of brainwaves (alpha, beta, theta and delta) which are different frequency bandwidths in the electrical output of the brain. Sort of like radio stations occupy different frequencies in the spectrum. This electrical energy is generated by the electro-chemical activity of your neurons, which encode information in tiny electrical impusles.

All of the primary brainwaves are present in your brain all of the time, but different waves will be stronger when you have particular types of thoughts. For instance, there will be stronger alpha waves in your brain when you are relaxing, and stronger beta waves when you are concentrating.

These alpha and beta waves are what most consumer EEG technology is based on. Consumer grade EEG applications, like the applications created for the Neurosky Mindwave, are for the most part based around interactions that measure the users levels of alpha and beta waves. Some sleep and meditation applications study theta and delta waves too.

The most advanced system available at the consumer level is the eMotiv EPOC, which has 16 sensors. The eMotiv operates similarly to how the hoax system is supposed to, in that the user is asked to think a certain thought a number of times, and the emotiv algorithms learn to recognize patters of EEG activity that correlate to those thoughts. But even with 16 sensors and advanced processing, they are only able to repeatedly recognize about 4 commands at a time, and this is after millions of dollars spent and years of research by some of the top minds in EEG processing.

The emotiv EPOC can recognize multiple commands

Also, the types of thoughts that are recognized by systems like the eMotiv system are limited to very specific types of thoughts, particularly thoughts about moving objects in space (i.e. push, pull, etc.) A complex thought like “Call” or “John” may eventually be detectable, but that kind of detection is at least 15 years away.

The idea that this system is able to decipher the full command “Call John” is completely unbelievable, especially considering that the system appears to only have 4 electrodes that are all located on the front of the head.

So there you can see:  this “hack” is revealed as a hoax, and one that is as disappointing as it is clumsy.

At InteraXon, we wholly believe in brainwave-based technologies. We see a world where computers understand and respond to human thoughts and behaviours in ways that make us happier, smarter and more efficient. We see EEG-based interfaces as tools for self-knowledge that will allow us to know ourselves better so that we can live more fulfilled and engaged lives. We want to bring these technologies to market in products that become essential parts of people’s everyday lives.

Hoaxes like Project Black Mirror make it that much harder for us to realize our vision. If you care about, believe in and support this technology, then please help us. Spread the news that this is a hoax. Share links of the real progress that is being made in BCI technology. Like the adorable and captivating Neurowear Necomimi EEG responsive ears, or the astonishing news that EEG technology can determine whether patients in vegetative states are still conscious or not.

The NeuroWear Necomimi Ears are one of the most captivating (and adorable) uses of EEG technology to date.

Help us share these stories about what really is possible with EEG technology and we’ll keep working hard to make sure that there are more amazing stories to share.

-Trevor Coleman (@trevorcoleman)