Weird Wednesday: software that records your dreams?

Filed under: Photo, Weird Wednesday

Each Wednesday Download Squad takes a look at the weirdest software out there. From future tech being cooked up in the lab to bizarre shareware, we'll cover the offbeat and off-the-wall. If you have a suggestion for a strange application, leave it in the comments.

Scientists are working on ways to read your mind using software. It makes sense that if you know how to read brainwaves you'd be able to reconstruct what the eyes are seeing, right? But Yukiyasu Kamitani is taking it to another level: using a an MRI to scan your brain and recreate what you see in your mind on a computer screen. Ultimately the technology could be used to read your mind with enough fidelity to create a video of your thoughts or dreams.

As the article in New Scientist points out, all of this raises ethical concerns should the tech work from a distance. Do you want marketers to read your mind? What would Google do if they could put contextual ads in your life? Can you upload your brain to Flickr?

Of course, this is a long way off. Not only does the software need a lot of refinement, the hardware challenges of reading brainwaves with enough fidelity to recreate an image is a giant hurdle. In the meanwhile, keep buying Lightspeed Briefs to match your tin foil hats.

Weird Wednesday: software that records your dreams? originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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