New brainwave devices will go on sale for as little as $80.

There seems little doubt that the advent of brainwave reading technologies heralds a new age in human-computer interaction. The first commercially available devices are likely to be used to for gaming, but the potential uses for this technology are bound to elicit excitement and worry in equal measure.

Researchers have developed systems that read brainwaves – in the form of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals – in order to help people suffering from disabilities or paralysis control wheelchairs, play games, or type on a computer. Now, two companies are preparing to market similar devices to mainstream consumers.

In the coming months, cheap headsets that let you control technology with the electrical signals generated by your firing neurons will go on sale to the general public. Our relationship with technology – and our brains – will never be the same again. – New Scientist, Apr 2009

IMPLICATIONS FOR METAPHYSICS & SOCIAL RESEARCH

The emergence of brainwave apparatus for practical purposes confirms the fact that humans, and presumably other animals, have the ability to consciously emit energy fields (electromagnetic frequencies). The effects of individual and collective emissions has been largely ignored by the scientific community for many years.

The ubiquity and evolution of brainwave devices may lead to greater insight into the relationships between our physical and metaphysical existence.

TECHNOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

EVOLUTION OF BRAINWAVE TECHNOLOGIES

The trajectory of technological evolution suggests that brainwave interfaces will be followed by similar breakthroughs to those of the telegraph. Rudimentary human-computer interaction will be superceded with increasingly complex and ubiquitous human-human and computer-to-human brainwave-based interaction.

• Remote Control – Computers, television, home & work appliances
• Internet Pull & Push Technology – Access to maps, email & alert systems notification
• Realtime Sensory Systems – Enhanced driver alert, connection to artificial sensors

If interactive brainwave technologies eventually connect humans (and possibly other species) into a super-neural internet, what will implications for privacy and security?

And the Pentagon has commissioned military contractors to develop a highly classified replica of the Internet of the future. The goal is to simulate what it would take for adversaries to shut down the country’s power stations, telecommunications and aviation systems, or freeze the financial markets — in an effort to build better defenses against such attacks, as well as a new generation of online weapons.

Just as the invention of the atomic bomb changed warfare and deterrence 64 years ago, a new international race has begun to develop cyberweapons and systems to protect against them. – New York Times (April 2009)

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• In Cyberweapons Race, Questions Linger Over U.S. Offensive Capability – Series (NY Times)