Transforming Thoughts Into Deeds
SAN FRANCISCO -- Lots of people wish they could jack their brain directly to their computer and toss out those annoying keyboards and joysticks -- especially people who can't use keyboards or joysticks.
Five quadriplegic patients might be months away from testing a brain-computer interface created by Cyberkinetics, a privately held company in Foxboro, Massachusetts. The company's system, called BrainGate, could help patients with no mobility to control a computer, a robot or eventually their own rewired muscles, using only their thoughts. If the trials go well, a product could be on the market by 2007.
"It looks a lot like the Matrix," Surgenor said, referring to the sockets in the backs of the movie characters' heads that allowed them to log into the Matrix grid.