Mental Keyboard, Anyone?

Mental Keyboard, Anyone?

Akili takes his lunch break. "There was another one, too."

- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994262

Calin saw that on CNN.

Akili rumbles lightly, "Ah."

Calin says, "That's pretty cool..."

Akili asks, "...But?"

Calin says, "I'm more interested in driving around a mech, or having boinic wings than I am in helping quadraplegics."

Calin grins.

Akili chuckles.

Akili rumbles lightly, "Hey, you could have four arms."

Akili rumbles lightly, "All the better to boffer with."

A burning calm falls over the hot grass.

Calin says, "Heck yeah."

Akili rumbles lightly, "For that matter, you could be your own computer joystick."

Calin nods.

Calin whoas. "Can you imagine having a mind controlled keyboard? How fast do you think you could type then?"

Calin says, "You'd still have to think the letters, but it would go much faster I'd think."

Akili ponders. "That... could be very difficult."

Calin says, "Yeah... hard to learn."

Akili rumbles lightly, "We'd have to determine what part of the brain contains the thoughts we're about to speak."

Calin says, "Nope."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Or at least, what part to tap into."

Calin says, "We don't want it to work like speech recognition."

Akili asks, "Oh... you mean having a mental keyboard?"

Calin says, "I would want it to work like a keyboard."

Calin says, "Yeah."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Hmm."

Calin says, "So you have the thing record your mental activity while typing..."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Slow learning curve, but I could imagine that you could get pretty darned fast."

Calin nods.

Calin says, "Back in high school, in my typing class... I really felt that my fingers were a hinderance to my speed."

Calin says, "They just wouldn't move any faster."

Akili grins. "Well, of course my fingers are limiting. No matter how fast I type, I can't type as fast as I can speak."

Calin says, "Well yeah, but that's cause you don't speak all the letters."

Akili rumbles lightly, "But I have discovered that switching completely to a speech-to-text solution requires a lot of mental adjustment."

Calin says, "As this much shows though, it's not too far a jump to think in letters and keystrokes."

Akili nods.

Calin says, "I type fluently, without having to concentrate on the individual letters."

Calin says, "And if the key was struck as soon as I told my fingers to do it.. rather than waiting till my finger actually pressed down on the key.."

Akili rumbles lightly, "I wonder if there's a limit to how many discrete signals can be picked up by one of those devices. Right now, it's fairly simple."

Calin says, "Then I would have had three dots at the end of that sentence."

Calin says, "If it can move an arm, it can move imaginary fingers on the keyboard."

Calin says, "I would think."

Akili rumbles lightly, "I'm not sure. Our fingers are capable of making very fine movements, and those are harder to pick up than, say, moving your arm."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Or so goes my impression. I may be way off."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Bigger nerves in major limbs, after all."

Calin says, "Ah, you could be right."

Calin says, "It would still be cool though."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Of course... we're pulling stuff from the brain, not a limb."

Akili agrees. "It would be a very interesting experiment."

Akili wonders if our brain would learn shortcuts.

Akili rumbles lightly, "Like reflexes."

Calin says, "Well, if you had full keyboard functionality..."

"Can you imagine editing a document?" asks Calin.

Calin says, "The cursor would fly around like mad, selecting, copying, cuting, pasting..."

Akili rumbles lightly, "So you don't have to think about typing all the letters in the word - you just think about typing the word."

Calin says, "Well you'd learn to do that."

Calin says, "Right now I don't have to think about every letter I type."

Akili ponders.

Calin says, "I mean, I know I am thinking of all of them in there somewhere, but far below my normal thought."

Akili nods. "I was just wondering about that. When you move your arm, are you really thinking about it?"

Akili rumbles lightly, "Chances are, no. You're thinking of what you want to do, and your arm just moves."

Calin says, "Nope. We've gotten really used to doing it, it comes naturally."

The hot calm settles on the shrubs.

Akili rumbles lightly, "Granted, having a 'keyboard' as a appendage would be a very complicated organ to have complete control over. Our hands only have five fingers."

Akili ponders again. "So, here's a thought."

Calin says, "Yup, but if you can control 9 appendages (8 fingers and one thumb), then you could have the keyboard work by combinations. Like a street fighter special move."

Akili asks, "Would you have mentral control over a hand that has one 'finger' per key... or some sort of 'hand' that typed on a mental 'keyboard' which was interpreted into the key you are trying to hit?"

Calin says, "I would think you'd have control over a set of virtual hands."

Calin says, "That way, the system could learn by watching your brain as you actually type."

Akili rumbles lightly, "True."

Calin says, "And you wouldn't have to learn new typing skills."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Otherwise, I guess you're essentially adding 101 new limbs. :)"

Calin says, "Just get used to creating the brain waves, without actually moving your fingers."

Akili nods.

Akili rumbles lightly, "The Zen of Typing."

Calin nods.

Calin imagines learning to use VI with that keyboard.

Calin says, "Man, now that is zen editing."

Akili imagines using any kind of computer interface with a keyboard like that.

Calin says, "Yup. You could play games, write papers, write code..."

Akili grins. "After all, how many games use keyboards?"

Calin says, "All of them."

Calin says, "Pretty much."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Yup."

Calin says, "Now, if you add in a mouse..."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Also, you could use more combinations than keyboards currently support."

Calin says, "With a scroll wheel..."

Pearl has connected.

Calin says, "Zen of the computing."

Calin says, "Good afternoon."

Pearl waves.

DainAltor says, "Hello Pearl."

Akili hmms. "I woulder if you could use the concept of your eye for a pointer. Hi, Pearl."

Calin says, "I was beginning to think it was just Akili and me today."

Akili rumbles lightly, "After all, we look at where we want to see."

Calin nods.

Pearl says, "It is. I am home sick. I just popped on because I can't stay in bed all day and moan. :)"

Calin says, "We're discussing this article, Pearl. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994262"

Calin says, "Ah."

Calin exclaims, "Well, welcome!"

Akili rumbles lightly, "And naturally, we've taken it in a whole new direction."

Pearl says, "Thanks."

Pearl looks.

Calin chuckles.

Akili chuckles. "We're glad for the company, in any case."

Pearl laughs at the headline.

"I wonder if your brain could get Carpel Tunnel Syndrome?" asks Calin.

Pearl laughs.

Akili rumbles lightly, "No, but you could probably give yourself a headache."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Intense concentration can do that."

Pearl wonders if the limb could catch a virus.

Calin says, "After reading that article, we've been thinking about how cool it would be to have a mental keyboard and mouse."

Pearl naturally thinks of this while having a cold.

"How fast could you edit with such things?" asks Calin.

Akili rumbles lightly, "I wouldn't think so, Pearl."

Pearl smiles.

Akili rumbles lightly, "Not unless someone develops a programming language for our brain."

Calin chuckles.

Akili rumbles lightly, "Good freaking luck."

Calin says, "It would be MS, of course."

Akili rumbles lightly, "MindSoft."

Calin says, "And it would let anyone who felt like it make us buy their product."

Pearl says, "heh"

- You Are Where We Want To Go Today

Calin chuckles.

Akili rumbles lightly, "Your checkbook will be assimilated."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Anyway."

Calin says, "Yeah, anyway."

Calin says, "We're not talking about any way to put things in your head."

Calin says, "Only new ways to get things from your head to the computer."

Calin says, "Or from your head to the real world."

Akili ponders.

Akili rumbles lightly, "Although, in a way, you are returning information."

Calin says, "And for that matter, only the things you take action to put out."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Any limb has to have feedback."

Calin says, "True."

Calin says, "I imagine it would take a similar effort to moving a real limb though, so it's not like somebody could just connect and download your data from your head."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Play the guitar with a numb hand. :)"

Calin says, "Ah, no thanks."

Akili nods, and would agree. "Someone might be able to do unkind things like give you an electric shock, but reading data... it wouldn't work that way."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Heck, even I don't know all the things I know."

Calin doesn't know all the things you know either.

Akili rumbles lightly, "I am glad to hear it."

Akili grins. "Man. Now I want one of these mental keyboards to play with."

The sweltering stillness settles across the hot shrubs.

Calin too.

Akili rumbles lightly, "Not that the idea of putting a probe in my head appeals to me."

"How much more productive could we be?" asks Calin.

Calin says, "Yeah..."

Akili grins. "Productive in relation to whom?"

Pearl says, "The monkey of course."

Calin says, "More productive with the mental keyboard than we are with the physical one."

Akili meant how much time we'd spend playing as opposed to getting work done. ;)

Akili rumbles lightly, "Here's another question: I wonder how fast you could repeatedly type a certain key."

Pearl says, "I would guess it would depend on the connection rate and how clearly your brain 'typed' the letter."

Calin says, "Oh, much faster than that."

Calin says, "True."

Calin says, "If it was too fast, it would probably be read as being held down."

Pearl nods.

Akili rumbles lightly, "Yeah... I suppose that would depend on the quality of the probe."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Beyond that, I suppose it'd be limited to nerve impulse velocity."

Calin nods.

Akili has no idea how fast we 'think'.

Pearl giggles and can picture this as a Monkey Rant.

Calin exclaims, "Hoo hoo heeeee!"

Pearl giggles.

Akili rumbles lightly, "Well, only because that's where the inital topic started. But I think it's an interesting rant, nonetheless."

Pearl nods. "I always thought about ESP and when does a thought get transfered. You know, as a vague thought or a deliberate thought sent out..."

Pearl asks, "In this case, what would the computer be callibrated to pick up?"

Akili rumbles lightly, "It's not reading our thoughts."

Akili rumbles lightly, "It'd be like having another pair of hands."

Pearl says, "Oh right, unconscious."

Pearl says, "Sorta"

Akili rumbles lightly, "I was talking about that with Calin. You don't think about moving your arm. Your arm just moves when you need it to. It's far too reflexive. However, we also have total control over it."

Akili rumbles lightly, "But you don't think about it. You just do it."

Akili rumbles lightly, "We only think about what we're going to do."

Calin says, "Right. So in this case, it would be just like typing with real hands... but without the flesh and bone to slow things down."

Akili rumbles lightly, "Exactly."

Akili rumbles lightly, "However you type, you'd be using the same method for this mental keyboard."

Calin nods.

Akili rumbles lightly, "And you'd have to learn to do it the same way you learned to type."

Akili huhs. "Actually, it might be harder."

Calin says, "Right. No fingers to look at."

Akili rumbles lightly, "We already have good control over our fingers and hands even before we try to type."

Calin says, "According to the article with the monkeys though..."

Calin says, "They started out moving their real arms."

Akili rumbles lightly, "True."

Akili rumbles lightly, "I wonder how the software made the distinction."

Calin says, "Then eventually they noticed that the physical movement was not necessary to do the task."

Akili rumbles lightly, "And they did say that their brains were changing, apparently to adapt to the new device."

Calin nods.

Akili rumbles lightly, "I'll bet it's a lot like trying to learn to move a new muscle. Like lifting a single brow."

Calin says, "Easier, I think."

Calin says, "Because you have the familiar muscles to guide you."

Akili rumbles lightly, "However, you have the same muscles to lift both of your brows."

Akili rumbles lightly, "You *should* be able to single them out. But it's not that easy."

A hot calm falls on the shrubs.

Pearl says, "have a great afternoon guys. I'm off to catch my nose."

Calin waves.

Calin says, "Get well."

Pearl says, "Thanks!"

Pearl has disconnected.

Akili goes to set up a printer.