Mental typewriter to make keyboarding obsolete
A computerized typewriter that translates electrical impulses from brainwave signals into letters and words could be available in the next five years.
In the short term, the technology will allow its developers, from the Fraunhofer Institute and the Charité Hospital in Berlin, Germany, to watch a thinking and behaving brain function in real time.
But in the long term, such a brain-machine interface could replace the joystick in electronic gaming or serve as a communication tool for people unable to speak or sign.
“We are dreaming of something like a baseball cap with electrodes in the cap that can measure the brainwaves,” said one of the scientists behind the project, Klaus-Robert Mueller of the Fraunhofer Institute.
“People could just put on the cap and have a wireless connection from these electrodes to a computer and they can play video games.” [source]