B2BC again. Hello, this is your phone speaking

Well, another news that reinforces my projection that the ultimate mobile interfaces will be neural in nature. Do check out my previous posts on what I think the future of communications will be. I call it B2BC.

Textually.org reports Brain Controlled Cell Phones. This time its a company called 'NeuroSky'.

Here's how it works (image courtesy: NeuroSky):

Whats really interesting about NeuroSky is the fact that they seem to offer Developer APIs and Kits. That's one helluva right move which could unleash unlimited creativity. I mean, if they had closed up the tech wishing to make all the applications by themselves, there would have been only as much as they could do (how many maverick employees can they have? A hundred odd perhaps? How many enthusiast mavericks are out there in the wild on the net? A couple a hundred thousand perhaps!) . Well, we should now be seeing more applications of this technology. I wish I had more time on my hands- I'd have definitely ordered one of those! If you are an electronics or software enthusiast/ student and are looking forward to a 'different' kinda project - you know what you need to do :). Do let me know how you get along, please.

Games Brains Play, Neural Drives and the future of communications

Back in 2006, I had mentioned that the future of communications would increasingly move towards a closer neural interface - I called it B2BC Brain To Brain Communication. I think good progress is being made in this direction.

I was trying to study further on what physical experience B2BC might result in; and thats when I thought of 'Déjà vu'. Déjà vu is a French word meaning 'already seen'. It occurred to me that future communication might be almost like a deja vu or out-of-the-body kindof experience - sounds a bit scary to me now (just as air travel might have sounded before the Wright Brothers ;) ).

Also, a lot of external information may need to be integrated with that already stored in the brain. For instance; say in a B2BC session, your new bank manager contacts in. The 'network' meanwhile would search for further details on the caller - say a holographic image of him, his name and location and feed that to your short-term memory center. So (if and) when you 'take' the B2BC call, you already 'know' and can visualize the caller. That would also require intricate knowledge on how the brain stores its information.

While delving further into such games that brains play and where the brain stores its memory, I came across following two sites of interest:

1. Mind Tricks Explained (PopSci)

2. Mapping Memory (NatGeo)

I obviously have some spare time now on my hands to do all this wacky and weird thinking. If you too happen to have some, I'd strongly advise you to exercise your thought muscles by paying those links a visit.

'The phone of the future'

(Originally published on my w2forum journal on 4th dec 2006)

Found this interesting post on The Economist through textually.org - thought it would be a nice add to my 'future .. ' journal.

The phone of the future

The article aims to place the cellphone as the “the remote-control for life”.

Interestingly its author also believes that future devices may interact directly with the brain as I had mentioned in my journal.

Apart from that what is interesting to me is a prediction that storage media may improve so much that ... "In a decade's time a typical phone will have enough storage capacity to be able to video its user's entire life... Researchers at Nokia, meanwhile, speculate that within a decade, the cost of storage will have fallen so far that it might be possible to store every piece of music ever recorded in a single chip that could be included in each phone...". Whoa!

The article ends talking about researchers at Motorola already talking about “the device formerly known as the cellphone” :-)

Interesting.

B2BC - the ultimate future of communications.

(Originally published on my w2forum journal on 3rd aug 2006)

This might sound a bit too far fetched, but I have been a firm believer in a concept that the future of communications, mobile communications- to be precise, is going to be device form factor agnostic , ubiquitous and pervasive.

I am amazed by the advances in man-machine interfaces and in the knowledge that we are on the threshold of graduating to a higher form of interface - neural. In the future, we will no longer be using key-pads to dial in numbers or even play games! The screen itself will be redundant - we will 'see' in our mind. I call this B2BC, brain-to-brain communication- almost telepathy.

I am imagining a few typical use-cases:

1. Just think of whom you want to communicate with, close your eyes(?) and you would be able to communicate at the speed of thought. Perhaps, even see through the other person's eyes, and even feel the other person's emotions!


2. Or, say you suddenly fall ill. All you have to do is think of your doctor! And the doctor gets a sense that you are in distress and more importantly - can feel your pain! Diagnosis will be real-time and probably the paramedics would already be on your door-step before you can realize.


3. Immersive MMORPGs. Most youngsters of that time will live most of their lives 'in' a virtual world - Matrix style ;-). The 'gaming' experience would be as close as it gets to reality. Many people would need special therapies to help them differentiate between what is real and what is not.

Check out these links to get a feel of what I was ranting:

1. CNN Money. Surfing the Web with nothing but brainwaves.

money.cnn.com/2006/07/21/technology/googlebra...

2. CNN Money. Google on your brain.

money.cnn.com/2006/07/26/technology/futureoft...

3. BBC News. Brain sensor allows mind-control.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5167938.stm

4. Cyberkinetics neural interface system.

www.cyberkineticsinc.com/content/medicalprodu...

5. Cyberkinetics brain-computer 'platform'.

www.cyberkineticsinc.com/content/technology/p...

What do you feel about these developments?
What about ethics? Who controls what?
Do you think this is the ultimate future of communications?