According to a story at physorg.com, researchers in Italy have prototyped a wheelchair that can respond to thoughts that are transmitted by electrodes connected to the riders scalp. This is being developed at Milan Italy’s Polytechnical Institute and when the user is connected to the computer via electrodes – signals are sent to the wheelchair to guide it to a destination like kitchen, bathroom, bedroom (wonder what thoughts trigger this?).

The computer’s actually not reading thoughts but brain impulses. Though the technology sounds cool – it seems to be 5 to 10 years away from being commercially feasible although researchers claim that the chair would only be 10% more costly than a standard chair.

PhysOrg

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