Dialing with Your Thoughts
From: Technology Review - 04/12/2011
By: Duncan Graham-Rowe

A new brain-control interface lets users make calls by thinking of the
number - research that could prove useful for the severely disabled and
beyond. 

Researchers in California have created a way to place a call on a cell phone
using just your thoughts. Their new brain-computer interface is almost 100
percent accurate for most people after only a brief training period. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/37357/?nlid=4339&a=f

Links:
Tzyy-Ping Jung
http://sccn.ucsd.edu/~jung/

Journal Of Neural Engineering
http://iopscience.iop.org/1741-2552/

Neurophone
http://sensorlab.cs.dartmouth.edu/pubs/neurophone.pdf

Submitted by Jerry Weisman

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Severely disabled people would be able to place a call on a cell phone with
just their thoughts using a new brain-computer interface developed by
researchers at the University of California, San Diego's (UCSD's) Swartz
Center for Computational Neuroscience. UCSD's Tzyy-Ping Jung and colleagues
developed a system that uses electroencephalogram (EEG) electrodes on the
scalp to analyze electrical activity in the brain. The team hooked up an EEG
headband to a Bluetooth module to wirelessly send the signals to a cell
phone, which used algorithms to process the signals. The researchers trained
users on the system via a visual feedback system that showed images on a
computer screen flashing on and off almost imperceptibly at different speeds.
A part of the brain called the midline occipital can detect the oscillations,
and the team exploited this by displaying a keypad on a large screen with
each number flashing at a slightly different frequency. The frequency can be
detected through the EEG, which makes it possible to tell which number the
subject is looking at. In tests involving 10 subjects, seven were able to
input a 10-digit phone number with 100 percent accuracy. The researchers say
the system also could be used to provide a hands-free experience to cell
phone users or to detect drowsiness in drivers and air traffic controllers.

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The Eyes Have It for Disabled Dialing
From: Computer Power User - 09/2011 - page 106
By: Anastasia Poland

For someone who is working with severe physical impairments, even the simple
act of dialing a phone may be impossible. Dr. Tzyy-Ping Jung of the
University of California, San Diego, along with Dr. Chin-Tong Lin of National
Chiao-Tung University in Taiwan, have developed, with their colleagues, a
relatively simple system to help the disabled make that call. 

The system utilizes a brain-computer r interface that reads a user's
electrical brain signals via an EEG headband. While wearing the headband, the
user views a phone touch pad displayed on a computer screen, with each number
in the pad flashing subtly at a different frequency from one another. 

"The user's goal was to dial a phone number by looking at the numbers ... in
the correct order," says Jung of the project. "When the user looked at a
number, the signals from the visual cortex were picked up by the sensors of
the EEG headband, amplified, and transmitted through a wireless Bluetooth to
a cell phone." After translating the signals into numbers, the phone placed
the call. Out of 10 subjects, seven were able to place a call with 100%
accuracy. 

Although the initial research has been aimed at assisting the disabled, Jung
is also excited about the possibility of creating a "cellphone-based
fatigue-monitoring system" for drivers, machine operators, and air traffic
controllers. 

"We plan to continue to optimize the mobile and wireless BCI device to make
it a truly wear-and-forget humanmachine interface."  

[Caption] Yu-Te Wang (University of California, San Diego). is one of the
researchers who is working on a brain-computer interface (using an EEG.
Buetooth-enabled phone. and computer) that could allow disabled people to
dial a phone by simply thinking the numbers.  

Source:
http://www.computerpoweruser.com
http://issuu.com/armilian/docs/download