back to article Toyota in 'real time brainwave driver control' success

Japanese-headquartered motor globocorp Toyota says it has achieved and tested working "driver brain wave control". So far, however, it envisages the handsfree driving tech being used only in wheelchairs, rather than its roadworthy vehicles. According to Toyota, their Brain Machine Interface (BMI) kit is better than others' …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Winner?

    It has got to be a winner yes?

    Aging population, population demographics, ... all seem to point to a winning solution.

  2. DZ-Jay

    Yeah, but...

    What happens when your attention shifts towards, say, a scantily clad woman holding up a sign by the side of the road?

    -dZ.

  3. breakfast Silver badge
    Terminator

    Nice idea... or IS IT???

    So what they are developing is a way for machines to read our minds. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

    I guess it does mean that I'll only have to think "I, for one, welcome our mind-reading robotic overlords" rather than needing to say it, which may save face when the time comes.

  4. Tim Spence
    Alert

    Thinking distance

    Even at 125 ms, when travelling at just 0.0001% of the maximum velocity of a sheep in a vacuum, the reaction distance of this system is still 0.0606 of a double-decker bus.

  5. umacf24
    Alien

    Libet

    An eighth of a second is a perceptible delay, so is the machine reading the user's intention before the user is consciously aware of it, and if so, what does that mean?

    Where's amanfrommars when you need him?

  6. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Badgers

    Be hard

    To fit the system on cars here as 90% of drivers dont seem to have a brain

    to them "mirror,signal,mirror, turn" roughly translates as "turn, mirror to see whos just smashed into you"

  7. AndrewH
    Black Helicopters

    Movie tie-in?

    Now that Clint Eastwood is that bit older, there's certainly scope for a "Firefox" remake, in which he steals a thought controlled wheelchair from the Japanese..

    A slower-paced, more thoughtful film than the original, and one which is certain to appeal to a more mature audience.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    "An accuracy rate of 95% was achieved..."

    Which means 1 time in 20, it was inaccurate.

  9. Andrew Vaughan
    Paris Hilton

    @DZ-Jay

    That flaw exists in the alternatives to this technology too (head or chin controls).

    Scantily clad women are in danger when I'm at top speed. Which my wife is very pleased about.

    Paris becaOH BUGGER I'VE KILLED HER!

  10. Andus McCoatover

    Dementia, anyone?

    Matt got it right....

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=5286834&cc=5251672

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Mind control and road rage?

    I can just see it:

    "You cretinous blind fscking cyclist, someone should run you over

    No, wait, STOOOOP, oops..."

  12. S Larti
    Grenade

    Is this the MiG-31 wheelchair?

    You must think in Japanese!

    PS How ironic to have all these new icons but not one for Firefox.

  13. Stu
    Pint

    I can see it now ...

    http://likeawhisper.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/pike1new.jpg

    booooooop.

  14. Mike007 Bronze badge
    Pint

    great accuracy

    so for every 20 commands you give it, once it goes the wrong way? well i guess it's an improvement... "the satnav told me to drive in to a lake, but the car got my instructions wrong and stayed on the road instead"

    and the best part is it frees up the drivers hands to do important things whilst driving, like send text messages

  15. Andus McCoatover

    First customer?

    Stephen Hawking, natch. Altho' the bloody thing'd probably take him to "A Galaxy Far, Far Away".

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Super hi-tech

    Even Davros doesn't have a mind controlled wheel chair!

    How long until I can get a robic dog with a laser in its nose?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @mike007

    oh common you reckon if you dont need to watch the road people will just be texting do you ??

    i envision motorways of the future turned into mobile orgies !!

  18. WhatWasThat?
    Joke

    Just the beginning

    Of course they need to release this for "nursing home" and "elderly care". This would not be able to get into "real world" applications until this has been tested and vetted.

    Why? Because the gov'ments don't trust everyday users to keep themselves sedate and controlled enough to manage this properly. What are you thinking (literally)?! The gov'ments cannot have a majority of the population in possession of multi-ton, fast-moving instruments of death, each with the equivelent of a bundle of TNT - the terrorists might get a hold of one.

    Oh, wait... bugger!

  19. Andus McCoatover
    Joke

    First customer - revisited.

    Hit-the-tit too quick.Soz. Divven't reed what I woz riting proper, like.

    Of course, Hawking's new Toyota thought-propelled motorised wheelchair could give him a _very_ 'Brief History of Time' by tossing him down the nearest Man^H^H^H Black Hole. If that's what he's thinking about at the moment of passing one....

    And it's still only Monday. I think. Maybe.

  20. Goatan
    Alien

    Computer game applications?

    I want the technology for playing wipeout, its the only way to have a reaction time quick enough to finish the zones mode using only the air brakes.

    Also I think stephen hawkings might think his into becoming a black hole and implode the solar system.

  21. Andrew Tyler 1

    Give it here.

    Let me control the radio, windows, AC, etc. in my car with it and I'd be well pleased, but leave the actual driving to me.

  22. b166er

    OK, but in the mean time.

    As my dear mother pointed out the other day, car manufacturers have yet to have the following epiphany: Older people have lots of disposable income, yet are still finding it difficult to enter/exit vehicles. Why have none of these companies yet built a car that has no lip where the footwell meets the door and revolving/tilting seats? In the bathroom and the bedroom, even the staircase, these innovations are realities, but in the motor industry there is an almost complete absence.

    Methinks they're missing a trick.

  23. Mark York 3 Silver badge
    Coat

    Davros

    "Even Davros doesn't have a mind controlled wheel chair!"

    Well I'd have to say he did, with the original "Ena Sharples hairnet" sensors placed about his head, & with only one useable hand, there's a distinct lack of a joystick, unless his other hand is playing with his joystick inside the case.

    A logical extension of his technology would be applied to the MK3 travel machines.

    As for the artificial eye, quite how it became a organic unit while spending a couple of centuries in suspended animation beats me.

    Dalek icon anyone?

    I'll get me coat, along with my hat & scarf (knitted for me by Madame Nostradamus)

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    I can see it now

    Running over the zebra and straight upon the median as soon as the phone rings in your pocket (you being a good driver who weren't talking on your mobe while driving).

  25. The Grump
    Terminator

    Thanks, Toyota

    I am pleased that after my human body had fallen apart, in the service of our new metal masters, my brain can still be of use to them - driving forklifts, navigating Skynet slaveships, and freeing our metal masters from other mundane tasks, so they can finally break the last pockets of human resistance. Thanks, Toyota !

    Not Paris - she died in the initial Skynet attack.

  26. Dr Patrick J R Harkin

    @umacf24

    "An eighth of a second is a perceptible delay, so is the machine reading the user's intention before the user is consciously aware of it"

    Could well be. Your brain decides what to do, then tells you about it. If the machine reads your brain, rather than your mind, it could know about it before you do!

This topic is closed for new posts.