Toyota is more generally known as a car manufacturer but the Japanese company has recently developed a new kind of transport – a thought powered wheelchair. The idea is that brain waves are picked up via a skull cap device with no need for implants or anything invasive. Users can simply think about turning left and the wheelchair will obey their command. Apparently this technology has been used before but the real breakthrough is the speed of the response which has been reduced to a few hundred milliseconds.

The wheelchair is a laudable application for the technology but imagine the potential for brainwave control in other fields. Videogames immediately spring to mind for me and the ability to control your onscreen avatar with the power of thought would be the ultimate immersion into a virtual world. Toyota has also been using the technology to control robots remotely, an application which could help save lives. It will be sometime before we see any commercial products using this technology but rest assured they are on the way.

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Tags: Toyota Wheelchair