Following the eye-controlled features on its latest smartphones, Samsung is now reportedly working on a mind-controlled tablet.
The South Korean tech giant and US researchers are working together to create a technology that would allow people to launch an application and make selections on a Galaxy tablet by concentrating on a blinking icon.
According to a report in the MIT Technology Review, users need to wear a cap studded with EEG-monitoring electrodes.
To use EEG-detected brain signals to control a smartphone, the Samsung and UT Dallas researchers monitored well-known brain activity patterns that occur when people are shown repetitive visual patterns.
In their demonstration, the researchers found that people could launch an application and make selections within it by concentrating on an icon that was blinking at a distinctive frequency.
Samsung’s lead researcher Insoo Kim told MIT Technology Review that thought control was a natural transition for interacting with devices.
“Several years ago, a small keypad was the only input modality to control the phone, but nowadays the user can use voice, touch, gesture and eye movement to control and interact with mobile devices.
“Adding more input modalities will provide us with more convenient and richer ways of interacting with mobile devices.”
A mind controlled device would be invaluable to people with mobility issues the report said.
Samsung’s Galaxy S4 smartphone already lets users control their smartphonescreen using their eyes. Using “smart pause” the user can pause a video by looking away from the screen while another feature uses eye movements to scroll through content.
Read the full report here
