Scientists Show Thought-Controlled Computer at Cebit

HANOVER, Germany -- Forget speech-recognition software: How about typing a letter just by thinking it?

In a quiet corner of the Cebit trade show a small Austrian company is showing a "brain-computer interface," a technology that could one day transform how we use computers, play video games and even talk to each other.

It sounds like science fiction but is a clever application of science and technology. The system does not really read thoughts; rather, it measures fluctuations in electrical voltage in the brain and translates them into commands on a computer screen.

The system consists of a cap that fits over the user's head, with a few dozen holes through which electrodes are attached so they rest on the scalp. The electrodes are connected via thin cables to a "biosignal amplifier," which transmits the signals from the brain to a computer.
Different parts of the brain are used to process different types of thoughts. Vertical and horizontal hand movements are handled in an area called the sensory motor cortex, for example, said Christoph Guger, CEO of g.tec, which built the BCI system shown here at the giant Cebit technology show.

To use a BCI to move a computer cursor, the electrodes are placed over the corresponding part of the brain, where they read tiny fluctuations in voltage and feed them into a software program that analyzes them to figure out what the person is thinking.

The software needs to be trained to read the signals, which takes several hours to do properly. The subject responds to commands on a computer screen, thinking "left" and "right" when they are instructed to do so, for example. Another test involves looking at a series of blinking letters, and thinking of a letter when it appears.

The software "learns" what the brain's voltage fluctuations look like when those directions or letters are thought of, Guger said.

Improvements Needed

The system today is also quite slow--even a trained system can "read" only 18 characters per minute, or three or four words. Still, that may be helpful for a disabled person who cannot communicate through speech or movement. About 200 disabled people worldwide are using the software at home to communicate, according to Guger, although they need professional help to set it up.

Another issue is accuracy. In a test at a conference in Austria about two years ago, 300 attendees were trained on the system for 30 minutes. After that time the system could figure out simple binary responses from most of the people 60 percent of the time--or "better than random," Guger said. For 7 percent of the people, the accuracy was more than 90 percent, he said.

The technology is advancing. Five years ago the system was too bulky to be transported easily, and now the various parts can fit in a shoebox. In 10 years it could be fast and accurate enough to commercialize in home PCs or games consoles, according to Guber.

"Ultimately you could have wireless contacts embedded in the brain, and communicate with others just by thinking," he said. "But then you really would have to worry about your wife finding out about your girlfriend."

No-Hands Pong

At Cebit, a colleague of Guber's donned the BCI system and played the game "Pong" against a reporter. It has also been used to write letters, operate artificial limbs and steer a wheelchair. "It's not safe enough for wheelchairs today though; if it reads a command wrongly you could veer off into the road," Guger said.

The study of BCI took off in the 1990s, primarily at three laboratories, in Austria, Germany and the U.S. There are now 300 laboratories working on it, Guger said. He completed his Ph.D. in BCI at the Graz University of Technology, in Austria, in 1999, he said.

He sells his BCI systems mainly to scientists for research work. They are priced from $26,000 to $132,000 depending on their sophistication. The company is showing a smaller, Pocket PC-based device at Cebit that starts at about $4,000. More information is at g.tec's Web site.

Measuring the brain's electrical activity like this is called electroencephalography, or EEG. It is noninvasive, meaning the electrodes are placed on the scalp without surgery, but it produces weaker signals and is subject to noise interference.

Invasive techniques produce better results but are tried only on patients who require brain surgery in any case, and on monkeys and other animals.

An engineer in the U.S. holds a patent on the general BCI concept, Guger said; other patents are held by universities for specific software algorithms used to decode the brain's signals.

Microsoft to Offer 'MySpace' for Business Apps Users

SAN DIEGO -- Microsoft today introduced the first in a planned series of online communities for users of its Dynamics applications to provide forums where peers can exchange best practices. Centered around specific industries or job titles, the first community is aimed at finance professionals such as corporate controllers, finance managers and accountants.
The software vendor made the announcement at its Convergence 2007 conference here this week as a way to help its Dynamics customers better connect with their external communities of customers, suppliers and partners.

"You can think of it as the MySpace for financial professionals," said Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Business Solutions group. "It's how you can have a Convergence [show] 365 days a year."

In talking to customers, one of their main reasons for attending the Convergence show is to engage with their peers, said James Utzschneider, general manager of Dynamics marketing at Microsoft. The vendor has been spending a lot of time recently looking at the Web 2.0 world to discover how the social network technology mostly aimed at teenagers could be applied to a business setting, he added.
Background

Microsoft demonstrated the online community concept at last year's Convergence conference and plans to bring more communities online later this year.

The online finance community can be accessed on Microsoft's Dynamics Web site. It features forums, blogs, articles, columns and tagging. While Microsoft has created the fabric of the site, the vendor intends it to be run by the community, according to Craig Dewar, director of Microsoft's Dynamics community marketing. That's why the site is as yet unnamed, with Microsoft encouraging the community to vote on what to call itself. Users also have the option to rate content within the community. So, far the name "Net Knowledge" is proving the most popular, trailed by "Finance Forum" and "Capital Chat."

In about a month, Microsoft will go live with further networking capability on the site so that users can create working groups within the community, which are either open to everyone or private where participants receive invitations to join, Dewar said.

He sees the upcoming functionality as a good opportunity for user groups to establish themselves in the online community.