MoneySuperMarket is a British financial firm that deals with car insurance, among many other things. The company has been working on a project called Car Insurance Epic Mind Drive to celebrate customers who use their heads when selecting insurance and when driving.
Naturally, when you have a project involving a futuristic concept like mind control, you need a futuristic vehicle, so the team selected the BMW i3. Maybe it helps that with an electric vehicle there is no loud exhaust noise to distract the driver—operator—controller—whatever.
The project team removed the driver’s seat of the BMW i3 and replaced it with a mechanism that we assume involved gears and motors and levers and servos and could ultimately turn the steering wheel and press on the accelerator and brake pedals.
A driver was fitted with an electroencephalography (EEG for short) neuro headset that allowed observers to monitor brain activity and trainers to train the subject’s brain to control the i3.
You might think the subjects were trained to think about turning left, or to think about going forward, but you’d be wrong. The subjects were asked to think abut a mental image; a mind picture. For example, floating balloons. Each time the subject thought about floating balloons, the brain sent the same signal that was picked up by the headset, and those signals were translated by the software into a command. So when the subject thought about floating balloons, the computer issued the command to turn left.
David Harling, Digital Marketing Director at MoneySuperMarket commented, “Driverless cars are currently being road tested but until they're an everyday reality, we know it's as important as ever for motorists to use their heads while driving.”
Controlling a car using only thought is a remarkable accomplishment, albeit one that probably doesn’t have that much of a future on real highways, what with distractions and radio interference and all. However, there may be many other applications to which this technology might be applied right now, starting with giving people with spinal cord injuries more control over their lives by using thought to have machines perform tasks in their homes.—Scott Blazey
[Photo and videos courtesy of SuperMoneyMarket.]
