wired.com — Researchers at Columbia University are combining the processing power of the human brain with computer vision to develop a novel device that will allow people to search through images ten times faster than they can on their own.
Jul 12, 2006 View in Crawl 4
ilitiritJul 12, 2006
See "Ghost in the Shell" if you haven't (yeah, right), especially the Stand Alone Complex episodes. Everyday our society begins to look more and more like Masamune Shiro's fictional world.
badhabitJul 12, 2006
and then you start seeing BSoD inside your brain ten times faster...
robwistarJul 12, 2006
i think that was the point.
dpcampJul 12, 2006
yeah thats the first thing i thought.. This is your brain. This is a computer on your brain... Any questions?
middleofnowhereJul 12, 2006
This has incredible potential beyond the obvious Orwellian surveillance stuff.As the article points out: Our brain is incredibly good at spotting things that are different/interesting/not quite right/really beautiful etc. before our consciousness serves an explanation of the "how" and "why". Evolution has sharpened this mechanism so we run before thinking about whether we just saw a pair of fangs or claws.E.g., I have to edit lots of text, and when scanning through these documents, this is exactly what happens: There is a kind of sub-/pre-conscious peak ("Hey, that’s not right!") that leads my eyes and hand to the actual error/inconsistency. Understanding what exactly is wrong about a particular word/sentence may take 2-3 seconds, but the sense that something is "wrong" is there immediately. I have friends (especially a teacher) who are even better at this.Think of it: An eye-tracker, a really fast display system and this EEG-based technology could use your brain like a beagle sniffing out the "right"/"dangerous"/important part of an image, video or text file - and zoom in on this particular detail so your mind can comfortably analyze it.Fascinating stuff.
metasquaresJul 12, 2006
There is no computer vision going on in this system. It's just a BCI. The brain is doing the "vision". All the computer is doing is snapping photos for later use based on the brain's response.
ambiversiveJul 12, 2006
In fact, I think I'm going to line my bike helmet with tin foil.
Closed AccountJul 12, 2006
Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.