We use them everyday: Touchscreens, keyboards, screens, these are all interfaces our brain uses to interact with the digital world. But what comes after VR glasses and haptic feedback? This is a hacker-friendly introduction to the biological, technical and ethical challenges of high-bandwidth direct brain communication.
cw: blood, pictures of brains
Like computers, our brain uses electrical signals for computation. By building devices capable of recording and decoding these patterns of neural activity, we can read information from the brain. By encoding and stimulating neurons using electric fields, we can establish bidirectional brain-machine communication.
This talk highlights why increasing the bandwidth of our interaction with computers is a key technology in the Information Age. We talk about where we are today, comparing non-invasive (EEG, EOG, MRI) and partially invasive (ECoG and endovascular) to invasive (microelectrode array) approaches. After this talk, you'll have a basic understanding of current engineering challenges, and why your next open-source project should be a brain-machine interface.
