Tired of poking at the keyboard or touch screen of phones and tablets to browse the Internet? It is worth thinking about the near future, because recently a new project called Brainternet was launched.
First step
A team of researchers from the University of Vita in Johannesburg, emerging from nowhere in the arena of neuroengineering scientific research dominated by giants like the secret military services and Elon Musk, made a breakthrough in science by connecting the human brain to the Internet for the first time.
Connecting a human brain to a computer is not an easy task.
When high-tech and well-funded research projects struggle with this type of action, it seems a bit surprising that a previously unknown research institute with a significantly smaller budget has surpassed not only innovator Elon Musk, but also a huge number of government projects around the world.
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The essence of the discovery
According to a press release, a team of neuroscientists and engineers have used an electroencephalogram (EEG) - a device that detects electrical signals in the brain - to transmit the neurological activity of the brain to a simple, cheap Raspberry Pi computer.
With the help of special programs, scientists conduct a live broadcast of brain activity on an open-access website for everyone interested in the project.
Research Objectives
This, of course, is not exactly what most of us think about when we hear theories about connecting the brain to computers and the Internet. In fact, this is just an open window showing someone's brain activity.
Why exactly did scientists need such an open demonstration? In fact, the motives for launching the project turned out to be quite noble.
The researchers sought to create a certain interactivity between the user and his brain so that the user can experience the stimulus and at the same moment see how the brain responds to this stimulus.
Although researchers themselves have long been observing EEG readings to assess the brain's response to certain stimuli, now ordinary people and even the observed themselves can connect to the observation. Surely everyone is interested in what exactly is going on in his head.
The future of the project
In addition, the leaders of the study are thinking about creating certain classifications of brain waves, which could later be used to write machine learning algorithms. Who knows, maybe in the near future we will learn how to transfer information in both directions: from the brain to the Internet and back.
This future is far away at the moment, since the human brain is a unique type of processor, especially when compared to a computer.
Brain and computer
Computers use a binary code to process information, which means that all information is presented only in the form of ones and zeros. The human brain processes information through several billion bioelectrochemical connections that combine thoughts with actions, and these complex relationships are not expressed as ones or zeros.
If we want to learn how to transfer information from the brain to a computer and download it from the Internet directly to the brain, first we need to create a conversion algorithm that can process and convert data into the required format.
This is an extremely difficult task, because the "format" of the brain and the system of interconnection of thoughts and actions have not yet been fully disclosed.
Hope Chikanchi