G
Guest
Guest
Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)
Sony aims to beam sights, sounds into brain
Thursday, April 7, 2005 Posted: 1:43 PM EDT (1743 GMT)
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- If you think video games are engrossing
now, just wait: PlayStation maker Sony Corp. has been granted a patent
for beaming sensory information directly into the brain.
The technique could one day be used to create video games in which you
can smell, taste, and touch, or to help people who are blind or deaf.
The U.S. patent, granted to Sony researcher Thomas Dawson, describes a
technique for aiming ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to
induce "sensory experiences" such as smells, sounds and images.
"The pulsed ultrasonic signal alters the neural timing in the cortex,"
the patent states. "No invasive surgery is needed to assist a person,
such as a blind person, to view live and/or recorded images or hear
sounds."
According to New Scientist magazine, the first to report on the patent,
Sony's technique could be an improvement over an existing non-surgical
method known as transcranial magnetic stimulation. This activates nerves
using rapidly changing magnetic fields, but cannot be focused on small
groups of brain cells.
Niels Birbaumer, a neuroscientist at the University of Tuebingen in
Germany, told New Scientist he had looked at the Sony patent and "found
it plausible." Birbaumer himself has developed a device that enables
disabled people to communicate by reading their brain waves.
A Sony Electronics spokeswoman told the magazine that no experiments had
been conducted, and that the patent "was based on an inspiration that
this may someday be the direction that technology will take us."
Sony aims to beam sights, sounds into brain
Thursday, April 7, 2005 Posted: 1:43 PM EDT (1743 GMT)
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- If you think video games are engrossing
now, just wait: PlayStation maker Sony Corp. has been granted a patent
for beaming sensory information directly into the brain.
The technique could one day be used to create video games in which you
can smell, taste, and touch, or to help people who are blind or deaf.
The U.S. patent, granted to Sony researcher Thomas Dawson, describes a
technique for aiming ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to
induce "sensory experiences" such as smells, sounds and images.
"The pulsed ultrasonic signal alters the neural timing in the cortex,"
the patent states. "No invasive surgery is needed to assist a person,
such as a blind person, to view live and/or recorded images or hear
sounds."
According to New Scientist magazine, the first to report on the patent,
Sony's technique could be an improvement over an existing non-surgical
method known as transcranial magnetic stimulation. This activates nerves
using rapidly changing magnetic fields, but cannot be focused on small
groups of brain cells.
Niels Birbaumer, a neuroscientist at the University of Tuebingen in
Germany, told New Scientist he had looked at the Sony patent and "found
it plausible." Birbaumer himself has developed a device that enables
disabled people to communicate by reading their brain waves.
A Sony Electronics spokeswoman told the magazine that no experiments had
been conducted, and that the patent "was based on an inspiration that
this may someday be the direction that technology will take us."