Software Notebook: Helping PCs Peer into the Minds of Users
From: Seattle Post-Intelligencer - 03/13/2006
By: Todd Bishop

Microsoft researchers have developed a technology that gives computers the
ability to formulate a rough idea of the state of a user's brain using
sensors that analyze the brain's cognitive state through impulses the sensors
collect. This method can determine, for instance, if a person is relaxed,
processing numbers, or in a state of imagination at a given moment. In a
practical sense, the technology could be used to choose the appropriate
medium for delivering an email alert, opting for an audible notification if
it senses that the screen is cluttered with applications. Still in its early
stages, Microsoft's brain computer interface project is not designed for a
specific product, but rather to "allow the user to increase the number of
things they can effectively do," said Desney Tan, who is leading the project.
The researchers tested their application on video gamers playing "Halo," and
found that it could determine with 95 percent accuracy whether the subject
was watching the game, playing casually, or engaged in a full-scale battle.
Tan and Microsoft's Ed Cutrell, a cognitive neuroscientist assigned to the
project, presented the technology at the recent Microsoft TechFest. A
prototype has the sensors contained in a white headband, though Tan says that
they could be embedded in headphones, headsets, or on the back of a chair.
Microsoft's research differs from many brain computer interface projects in
that it does not seek to control the computer directly through brain waves,
but rather to create an economical technology that could eventually see
widespread use in mainstream settings, rather than in controlled lab
environments. Tan notes that the system could also be used to analyze
computer systems to determine which demand greater levels of thought from
their user. 

Read the entire article at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/262684_software13.html

Links:
Desney S. Tan
http://research.microsoft.com/%7Edesney/

Edward Cutrell
http://research.microsoft.com/~cutrell/