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Chipmaker Intel is throwing a ton of cash into developing brain implants to help people send text messages with their minds. They are also predicting these implants will be the main way you turn on the TV in 10 years. More »
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According to data recorders strapped to pigeons' heads, pigeon migration may not be too different from human navigation: the birds use landmarks to navigate, they pay more attention when in cities, and they even recognize other pigeon colonies. More »
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A man suffering from "locked in" syndrome, where a fully-conscious person is completely paralyzed except for some eyelid movements, is speaking again using a computer. Doctors report in Nature today that he's using a brain implant to control speech synthesizing software with his mind. More »
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Imagine waking up one morning and being unable to speak. Your mind still churns away, trying to form words, but no sounds will come out. It's like the bleak ending of Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream only, you know, real. This is a fact of life for many people with varying levels of paralysis, who have lost the ability to control their vocal chords, lips, and tongue. But an experimental brain implant promises to change their lives. More »
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Brain implants are here, and they're making people happy. It'll probably still be a while before you can neurointerface directly with the internet or your friends and lovers, but psychologists are testing implantable brain 'pacemakers' that regulate brain activity and so far appear really useful for treating the most stubborn forms of depression. We reported earlier on the Soletra implant, but there are many more. More »
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The time it takes for sensory input to travel along nerves and get processed by the brains means we're always living in the past. Okay, no problem — we can live with a few lost milliseconds. But ten seconds? A new study shows that once our brains make a decision (like "push this button") it takes that long for our conscious minds to become aware of it. More »
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A new kind of computer circuit printed on ultrathin rubber would make the perfect "brain wrapper," says its inventor. Usually computer circuits are etched on rigid, plastic boards, but University of Illinois researcher John Rogers has successfully placed circuits on a rubbery material that can bend and stretch. Many groups have been working on developing this technology, but Rogers is the first to demonstrate that his bendy circuits actually work. Rogers says the circuits could wrap around part or all of the brain, to monitor its electrical activity. Or — in future applications — to interface with your brain, perhaps using antennae to establish a wireless neural link to the internet so you can be Googling with your mind. More »
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In John Varley's upcoming scifi novel Rolling Thunder, everyone has a brain implant that lets them google information constantly. And many futurists are saying this technology will become a reality long before we colonize Mars. The question isn't whether we'll have google brain implants (or the futuristic search engine equivalent), but how we'll handle them. What exactly would be the plusses and minuses of being able to google information instantaneously in your head, without anybody knowing you're doing it? More »
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io9s were marketed as cheap time machines in the 2070s. They were actually just low-grade input/output devices for the brain that tuned tachyon waves and gave users vivid images of possible futures. The things were so addictive, and drove so many people insane, that io9s were eventually outlawed. Today the word is just slang. io9ers are the early implanters who obsessively upgrade themselves with beta tech. People who tweak out on buggy brainware are sometimes said to have "gone io9." Science fiction writer Ken MacLeod has another term for io9ers. He calls them rapture fuckers. More »
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