Brain-computer interfaces: a powerful tool for scientific inquiry
Authors: Wander JD, Rao RPAbstract. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are devices that record from the nervous system, provide input directly to the nervous system, or do both. Sensory BCIs such as cochlear implants have already had notable clinical success and motor BCIs have shown great promise for helping patients with severe motor deficits. Clinical and engineering outcomes aside, BCIs can also be tremendously powerful tools for scientific inquiry into the workings of the nervous system. They allow researchers to inject and record information at various stages of the system, permitting investigation of the brain in vivo...
Source: Positive Technology Journal - April 15, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Brain-computer interface Source Type: blogs
Android Wear
Via KurzweilAI.netGoogle has announced Android Wear, a project that extends Android to wearables, starting with two watches, both due out this Summer: Motorola’s Moto 360 and LG’s G Watch.Android Wear will show you info from the wide variety of Android apps, such as messages, social apps, chats, notifications, health and fitness, music playlists, and videos.It will also enable Google Now functions — say “OK, Google” for flight times, sending a text, weather, view email, get directions, travel time, making a reservation, etc..Google says it’s working with several other consumer-electronics manufacturers, includi...
Source: Positive Technology Journal - April 15, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Wearable & mobile Source Type: blogs
A Hybrid Brain Computer Interface System Based on the Neurophysiological Protocol and Brain-actuated Switch for Wheelchair Control
CONCLUSIONS: The results validated the efficiency of our hybrid BCI system to control the direction and speed of a real wheelchair as well as the reliability of hybrid signals-based switch control. (Source: Positive Technology Journal)
Source: Positive Technology Journal - April 15, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Brain-computer interface Neurotechnology & neuroinformatics Source Type: blogs
Avegant - Glyph Kickstarter - Wearable Retinal Display
Via MashableMove over Google Glass and Oculus Rift, there's a new kid on the block: Glyph, a mobile, personal theater.Glyph looks like a normal headset and operates like one, too. That is, until you move the headband down over your eyes and it becomes a fully-functional visual visor that displays movies, television shows, video games or any other media connected via the attached HDMI cable.Using Virtual Retinal Display (VRD), a technology that mimics the way we see light, the Glyph projects images directly onto your retina using one million micromirrors in each eye piece. These micromirrors reflect the images back to the r...
Source: Positive Technology Journal - April 15, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Future interfaces Telepresence & virtual presence Virtual worlds Wearable mobile Source Type: blogs
A sweet, sad stop-motion film made with 3-D printing
Via WiredLondon-based creative agency DBLG shows the way with “Bears on Stairs,” a short clip that combines a 3-D printed hero with traditional stop-motion animation to charming effect. The ursine epic has a 2-second run time and took four weeks to complete, making it about as efficient as your average Michael Bay production, by my rough calculations. The lumbering action took 50 printed models in all.BEARS ON STAIRS from DBLG on Vimeo. (Source: Positive Technology Journal)
Source: Positive Technology Journal - April 15, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Cyberart Source Type: blogs
Shugo Tokumaru "Katachi"
(Source: Positive Technology Journal)
Source: Positive Technology Journal - March 9, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Creativity and computers Cyberart Source Type: blogs
Virtual reality for the assessment of frontotemporal dementia, a feasibility study
Conclusions: VR is feasible and well-tolerated in bvFTD. These patients may have VR responses comparable to real world performance and they may display a presence in the virtual environment which could even facilitate assessment. Further research can explore the promise of VR for the evaluation and rehabilitation of dementias beyond Alzheimer's disease. Implications for Rehabilitation Clinicians need effective evaluation and rehabilitation strategies for dementia, a neurological syndrome of epidemic proportions and a leading cause of disability. Memory and cognitive deficits are the major disabilities and targets for rehab...
Source: Positive Technology Journal - March 2, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Cybertherapy Virtual worlds Source Type: blogs
Evaluation of a virtual reality prospective memory task for use with individuals with severe traumatic brain injury
Authors: Canty AL, Fleming J, Patterson F, Green HJ, Man D, Shum DHAbstract The current study aimed to evaluate the sensitivity, convergent validity and ecological validity of a newly developed virtual reality prospective memory (PM) task (i.e., the Virtual Reality Shopping Task; VRST) for use with individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Thirty individuals with severe TBI and 24 uninjured adults matched on age, gender and education level were administered the VRST, a lexical decision PM task (LDPMT), an index of task-friendliness and a cognitive assessment battery. Significant others rated disruptions in the TBI par...
Source: Positive Technology Journal - March 2, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Cybertherapy Virtual worlds Source Type: blogs
Virtual Reality for sensorimotor rehabilitation post-stroke
Virtual Reality for Sensorimotor Rehabilitation Post-Stroke: The Promise and Current State of the Field. Curr Phys Med Rehabil Reports. 2013 Mar;1(1):9-20Authors: Fluet GG, Deutsch JEAbstract Developments over the past 2 years in virtual reality (VR) augmented sensorimotor rehabilitation of upper limb use and gait post-stroke were reviewed. Studies were included if they evaluated comparative efficacy between VR and standard of care, and or differences in VR delivery methods; and were CEBM (center for evidence based medicine) level 2 or higher. Eight upper limb and two gait studies were included and described using the foll...
Source: Positive Technology Journal - March 2, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Cybertherapy Virtual worlds Source Type: blogs
By licking these electric ice cream cones, you can make music
From WiredIce cream can be the reward after a successful little league game, a consolation after a bad breakup, or, in the hands of gourmet geeks, a sweet musical instrument. Designers Carla Diana and Emilie Baltz recently whipped up a musical performance where a quartet of players jammed using just a quart of vanilla ice cream and some high-tech cones (Source: Positive Technology Journal)
Source: Positive Technology Journal - March 2, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Creativity and computers Cyberart Future interfaces Source Type: blogs
3D Thought controlled environment via Interaxon
In this demo video, artist Alex McLeod shows an environment he designed for Interaxon to use at CES in 2011 interaxon.ca/CES#. The glasses display the scene in 3D and attaches sensors read users brain-states which control elements of the scene.3D Thought controlled environment via Interaxon from Alex McLeod on Vimeo. (Source: Positive Technology Journal)
Source: Positive Technology Journal - March 2, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Biofeedback & neurofeedback Brain-computer interface Mental practice mental simulation Neurotechnology neuroinformatics Virtual worlds Source Type: blogs
Myoelectric controlled avatar helps stop phantom limb pain
Reblogged from MedgadgetPeople unfortunate enough to lose an arm or a leg often feel pain in their missing limb, an unexplained condition known as phantom limb pain. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden decided to test whether they can fool the brain into believing the limb is still there and maybe stop the pain.2inShareThey attached electrodes to the skin of the remaining arm of an amputee to read the myoelectric signals from the muscles below. Additionally, the arm was tracked in 3D using a marker so that the data could be integrated into a moving generated avatar as well as computer...
Source: Positive Technology Journal - March 2, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Cybertherapy Wearable & mobile Source Type: blogs
Voluntary Out-of-Body Experience: An fMRI Study
Authors: Smith AM, Messier C Abstract The present single-case study examined functional brain imaging patterns in a participant that reported being able, at will, to produce somatosensory sensations that are experienced as her body moving outside the boundaries of her physical body all the while remaining aware of her unmoving physical body. We found that the brain functional changes associated with the reported extra-corporeal experience (ECE) were different than those observed in motor imagery. Activations were mainly left-sided and involved the left supplementary motor area and supramarginal and posterior superior tempo...
Source: Positive Technology Journal - March 2, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Telepresence & virtual presence Source Type: blogs
Humanlike robot hands controlled by brain activity arouse illusion of ownership in operators.
We present a novel body ownership illusion that is induced by merely watching and controlling robot's motions through a brain machine interface. In past studies, body ownership illusions were induced by correlation of such sensory inputs as vision, touch and proprioception. However, in the presented illusion none of the mentioned sensations are integrated except vision. Our results show that during BMI-operation of robotic hands, the interaction between motor commands and visual feedback of the intended motions is adequate to incorporate the non-body limbs into one's own body. Our discussion focuses on the role of proprioc...
Source: Positive Technology Journal - March 2, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Telepresence & virtual presence Virtual worlds Source Type: blogs
How much science is there?
The accelerating pace of scientific publishing and the rise of open access, as depicted by xkcd.com cartoonist Randall Munroe. (Source: Positive Technology Journal)
Source: Positive Technology Journal - February 16, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: Blue sky Information visualization Source Type: blogs
