Thank you to all the #wef18 attendees that came to visit us at the @fia and @emotiv#Tech4RoadSafety experience! See you next year!! #davos#neurotech4good#emotiv#FIApic.twitter.com/UeixouRio0
- EMOTIV (@emotiv) January 26, 2018
Imagine if you could use a drone to do all the annoying tasks you want? From bringing you the phone to handing you that pesky remote that's just out of your reach without lifting a finger?
We can't imagine it either, but the technology apparently exists.
At the 2018 Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, Emotiv, a privately-owned bio-informatics and technology company that develops and manufactures brain wearables, showed us how it's done.
What Emotiv has basically done is create a drone that reads your brain signal and does your bidding. By wearing a lightweight plastic headset that reads electrical impulses from the brain, all you have to do is think the thought and the drone will make it happen. Currently, they've documented the headset being used to monitor sleep patterns and control video games. At the forum, the drone was seen flying thanks to headset wearers visualizing it doing so, states The National.
This could mean big things in the future, Olivier Oullier, President of Emotiv, was reported as saying. Any job that requires concentration can utilize this technology. From pilots and surgeons to plant operators or just your average person working a desk job, there's no limit to who can benefit from this technology.
And the device has already proved it: In 2017, a Brazilian, Rodrigo Mendes, who was paralyzed almost 30 years ago in a carjacking, was able to drive an F1 car using his mind. The car – which had no steering wheel or pedals, was able to run on Mendes' mind alone.
Upon learning about this incredible feat, race car champion, Lewis Hamilton (who was also a speaker at the forum) has agreed to race Mendes in cars controlled only with their minds.
As incredible as that sounds, at one point we have to ask; is too much technology a good thing? Not everyone can be trusted to use this neuroscience for personal growth or the greater good. Then what?
The company believes that in some industries, the technology can be harmful considering the way those specific industries operate now. Oullier sites the car industry as an example. Humans are relying more and more on GPS systems, but in bad weather, the navigation should be turned off. Instead, people are looking to their screens and thus reacting too slow in bad weather, resulting in accidents. Eventually, the technology will be there where brain signals will be sent to the car, which will then send a warning to the driver informing them of their fatigue, so that they may slow down or stop driving.
In the end, Emotiv believes this technology will provide a lot more good than harm, especially for people with handicaps whose lives will completely change for the better.
With the world as we know it shifting to resemble a sci-fi film more and more, it seems that the impossible, is in fact, possible.