SOON I WILL BE ABLE TO READ YOUR MIND I am seldom surprised by technology. I know for a fact that in fifty years time, life as we know it now will be perceived as primitive. But I still marvel at the advances being made daily. Like wouldn’t it be cool to know what people are thinking? Well, it looks like that’s going to be possible sooner than you thought it would.

 

Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner normally used in hospitals, a team at the University of California scanned the brains of two volunteers while they watched videos.

The results were fed into a computer that looked for links between colours, shapes and movements on the screen, and patterns of activity in the brain.

The computer software was then given the brain scans of the volunteers as they watched a different video and was asked to recreate what they were seeing.

Although the results were crude, the technique was able to reproduce the rough shape of Steve Martin’s torso, and a city skyline.

 

The experiment is the latest in a series of studies designed to show how brain scans can reveal our innermost thoughts.

Professor Jack Gallant, who carried out the experiment at the University of California, Berkeley, said: "At the moment when you see something and want to describe it you have to use words or draw it and it doesn't work very well.
‘This technology might allow you to recover an eyewitness's memory of a crime.’

Pretty soon we will be able to carry a device that fits into our palm.
This could prove a very handy device to use before sauntering up to the bombshell at the bar to enquire ‘Do you come here often?’

Kader Khan
Editor
info@yummie.co.za