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back to article Chinese boffins build brain-powered camera 'copter

The evolution of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology appears to have taken another leap forward thanks to a group of Chinese boffins who’ve invented a toy quadracopter that can be controlled by human thought alone. Researchers at Zhejiang University in the eastern city of Hangzhou designed the copter with an on-board …

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  1. nuked
    Angel

    Hopefully...

    ... I'll be able to think myself out of bed and into work soon.

    All joking aside, this is pretty amazing stuff.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Wait till they

      Manage to put an implant in your head.

      With the crap some of our politicians spout I reckon it's already happening.

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  2. Arctic fox
    Unhappy

    "clenching one’s teeth will make the copter descend."

    Remembering the last time I flew in a helicopter, I started to clench my teeth (as well as another portion of my anatomy) when the copter started to descend - it was doing so rather rapidly at the time. Icon? Describes my feelings at that moment.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Muscle signal

    Sounds like a lot of their trigger signals are actually muscle signals. Clenching your teeth causes a much bigger signal in an EEG than anything from the brain does.

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  4. archengel46
    Thumb Up

    messy

    Now everyone in the world knows how messy ZheJiang university is...

    Interesting game nevertherless! When can I buy one?

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nice...

    ... ar drone 3.0?

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  6. Crisp

    What does it do if you clench your buttocks?

    See title.

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  7. Steve 6
    Mushroom

    Will it fire missiles ....

    ... if you give the commands in Russian?

    Clint Eastwood whould be the perfect person to market this!

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  8. Weird_George
    Big Brother

    Drone

    Put that in a drone...

    So that Obama or <place any US President> could kill anyone he pleases :(

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  9. Veldan
    Thumb Up

    YouTube

    The YouTube video for anyone that is interested is here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH96O5niEnI&feature=player_embedded

    It looks pretty damned amazing... :o

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  10. kiwimuso
    Thumb Up

    Weird command structure

    "For example, thinking “left hard” will make the drone take off and land; thinking “left lightly” will get it to rotate clockwise; and thinking “right” will make it fly forwards."

    Surely it would be more instinctive to "think forward" to go forward, "think hard right" to turn right, "think up" to go up, etc

    ...unless I'm missing something fundamental in the way the brain works.

    Otherwise, great concept.

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