I was totally against this, but then I put on the cap, and now I can say I welcome it. Indeed, I must say that. Awaiting further commands.

There was an action/sci-fi movie called Gamer a few years ago that briefly explored this kind of technology. I was still fascinated by what the script writers came up with - people whose job was to be real-world second life characters, prison inmates who were real-world bodies in a COD modern warfare style game called Slayers, and of course people committing crimes.

There was also a Stargate episode[0] which dealt with the issue of having a direct neural interface. In that case, it wasn't people controlling people, but people dealing with a centralized computer system for access to information.

[0] http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Revisions_(episode)

I always assumed we'd have private spaceships before we could decode the brain well enough to do something like this. Wow!

We do have private spaceships.

I didn't imagine a conversation like this will happen during my lifetime.

I was including me in the We. I haven't hooked mine up yet.

Yea but SpaceX's private spaceships is how it looks when it's germinating, just like how mind control right now appears to be really basic as well.

I hope you're right. I plan on working until I'm 80 or 90 to be able to afford one.

Yeah I'm sure the internet is a great place in which to plug our brains, what with all the collection going on. Last thing I want is for all this nightmare to become unopt-out-able.

Did you even read the article before your cynical slagging on the tech?

>But Rao cautioned this technology only reads certain kinds of simple brain signals, not a person’s thoughts. And it doesn’t give anyone the ability to control your actions against your will.

Both researchers were in the lab wearing highly specialized equipment and under ideal conditions. They also had to obtain and follow a stringent set of international human-subject testing rules to conduct the demonstration.

“I think some people will be unnerved by this because they will overestimate the technology,” Prat said. “There’s no possible way the technology that we have could be used on a person unknowingly or without their willing participation.”

I for one am tired of seeing some exciting advancement come out of research and then having someone pooh-pooh it out of ignorance. Think of the positive places this could go!

>Think of the positive places this could go!

My first thought reading it was that some coma patients could finally 'talk' to their loved ones and doctors (e.g., http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230092/Rom-Houben-P... ).

My second thought was wondering whether we could crowd-source the origin. For example, multiple people sending commands, with the majority command being acted upon. Creepy, but potentially cool (I'm not sure what this says about me.).

My third thought was wondering whether the receiver would develop 'muscle memory' of the actions taken. In other words, could the receiver learn how to do certain movements.

This is really fascinating and I wish I had a better handle on the principles that underpin this kind of research. Can anyone recommend some starter books or papers that cover the subject? For background prior to reading some more advanced material, would it be better to get a primer in traditional neuroscience, or something like signals-processing?

Seems like one application of this would be for reflex enhancement in, say, a solider. Equip soldiers with a helmet which stimulated them to act quicker than they would have otherwise in response to visual/auditory stimuli.