Thinking Makes it Happen

When the brain is working, it generates electromagnetism. A well designed detector of electricity or magnetism can monitor the action of the brain. That is simple EEG or MEG. But if you provide the brain with feedback of its own behaviour, while continuing to monitor the brain, you create a neurofeedback loop.

Clever neuroscientists and computer scientists in Berlin have developed a device that allows persons to operate a computer keyboard using their brainwaves.
This device comes under the category of brain-machine interfaces. It is easy to imagine that if a person can control a computer keyboard with his thoughts, then anything that can be interfaced with an electrical or electromagnetic actuator can be controlled by a person's thoughts.

I find the concept of a wearable robotic exoskeleton, to be one of many things that could be controlled by brainwaves. It would not be hard to equip such an exoskeleton with actuators and brainwave interfaces.
JW Bats of Our Technological Future, reports on this robot hand that detects nerve impulses and moves accordingly. The hand contains pressure sensors, allowing it to pick up and handle very delicate objects.

If one were to combine the brainwave interface with an actuator-equipped exoskeleton, with pressure detecting sensors on the robotic appendages, you might have the basis for an ambulatory device that could replace the wheelchair--for paraplegics, quadriplegics, and victims of disabling neuro/musculo/skeletal diseases. Neurofeedback has a lot of potential.

As I made clear in this post, I prefer biological solutions over hardware solutions. But as I suggested here, and in other posts, I am agreeable to using hardware solutions as a stopgap, while the biological solutions are still being worked out. The goal is full functionality--and more. Getting from here to there will be a winding road.

Hat tip Singularity News.