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EEG Headset Is Parasitic Cephscope
This portable electroencephalograph headset is extra lightweight because it is battery-free. Researchers at the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC), in Belgium, created the headset.
Lots of uses in health care, of course. Wireless monitoring of patients would be easier in hospitals; people with a risk of seizure could keep the device on all the time, with a warning if particular patterns are seen.
(Brain power EEG harvesting headphones)
The researchers also can see this device being used as a game interface, providing head case users with a new way to relate to their machines.
In this way, it reminds me of the Cephalochromoscope, or Cephscope, from Philip K. Dick's 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly:
And in Bob Arctor's living room his thousand dollar custom-quality cephscope crafted by Altec would, after supposedly being repaired, cast onto the wall in dull gray on one small spot:I KNOW IF I JUST HAD ANOTHER HIT
After that they'd throw the cephscope, damaged beyond repair, and Jerry Fabin, damaged beyond repair, into the same ash can.
(Read more about PKD's Cephalochromoscope)
Best of all, the EEG headset powers itself from the temperature difference between your head and the rest of the world - yes, that's right, it's a parasitic power harvesting device.
Philip K. Dick would be pleased. (As you may know, anywhere from 30-50% of the heat lost from the body is through the head; at any one time, about 15% of the body's blood volume is in your head. The device has little solar panels for power when it's hot outside.)
Via Brainwave-reading headphones need no batteries.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/19/2008)
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