Stanford Scientists Hope to Hack into Stephen Hawking's Brain

Researchers develop iBrain device to closely monitor Stephen Hawking's brain activity.

It goes without saying that Stephen Hawking is one of the world's brightest minds alive today, unfortunately his infinite wisdom is no longer as easy to share with the rest of the world as it once was. Due to development of his motor neurone disease over the years, Hawking's thoughts have become increasingly difficult to communicate.

Despite sophisticated speech generation devices, Hawking is no longer able to educate the world as he used to. This may all change very soon thanks to the work of professor Philip Low at Stanford University. Hoping to "hack" into Hawking's brain, Low and his team of researchers have created something called the iBrain, a device that is designed to measure electrical brain activity with an extreme amount of detail.

By measuring the intense brain activity going on while Hawking thinks about performing basic motor functions, the researchers hope to develop a sophisticated roadmap that can eventually be used to transcribe a person's thoughts into words. Although the device is far from being able to completely read our minds, it provides a very promising start to the creation of speech generation devices that utilize the brain rather than the body.

More information to come next month as the researchers reveal their latest findings at a conference in Cambridge where they plan to demonstrate the latest developments in the iBrain on Hawking live.