London: Imagine your child controlling toys with his/her brain while you get busy with home chores. According to researchers from the University of Warwick in Britain, next generation toys controlled with the power of thoughts can become must have gifts in the near future.
Led by Professor Christopher James, the team has developed a technology which allows electronic devices to be activated using electrical impulses from brain waves, by connecting our thoughts to computerised systems.
The research connects the human mind with electronic devices and sensors in headsets receive brain waves and feed them into electrical circuits.
As a result, remote-controlled cars and toy robots could be activated with kids' levels of concentration like thinking of his/her favourite colour or stroking your dog. Instead of a hand-held controller, the headset is used to create a brain-computer interface. This activity is then processed by a computer, amplified and fed into the electrical circuit of the electronic toy.
The exciting bit is what comes next -- how long before we start unlocking the front door or answering the phone through brain-computer interfaces, the researchers noted.
