Computers That Read Your Mind
From: Economist Technology Quarterly - 09/2006 - Vol. 380, No. 8496, P. 24 

With all kinds of technologies vying for people's attention, researchers are
developing products designed to help users become more lucid and focused by
achieving a state of "augmented cognition" through the use of sensors that
can deduce a person's mental state. Such technology could help people cope
with information overload, a problem plaguing the US military; it comes as no
surprise that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a
major investor in augmented cognition research. One concept being pursued in
this vein is a smart cockpit for fighter aircraft, in which the pilot's brain
activity is measured by a helmet equipped with EEG sensors. When weighed
against contextual information, the system can determine if the pilot's level
of concentration is too delicate to be interrupted and filter out
non-essential input to reduce cognitive stress. There are also augmented
cognition efforts that target the workplace and other non-military venues.
Microsoft Research scientist and American Association for Artificial
Intelligence President Eric Horvitz says his lab is working on technology
that filters data before it reaches the user; the goal is to make people
capable of absorbing more information without being overloaded. Rather than
analyzing brain activity, the idea is for the system to get clues about the
user's mental state by studying other factors, such as keystrokes, the
content the user is viewing, the time of day, and the contents of a desktop
calendar. Augmented cognition's potential applications also include
entertainment: John Laird of the University of Michigan's Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory believes such systems could prevent boredom and
confusion among video gamers, while Lancaster University's Alan Dix foresees
sensor-outfitted game consoles that can infer the player's level of
alertness.  

Read the entire article at:
http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=7904258

Links:
Eric Horvitz
http://research.microsoft.com/%7Ehorvitz/

John E. Laird's Homepage
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/laird/index.html

John Laird's Artificial Intelligence & Computer Games Research
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/laird/gamesresearch.html