Adam Wilson, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison managed to update his twitter account by using his mind only.

How did he do that? By strapping a brain-computer interface (BCI) to his head and connecting it to a computer. The electrodes detected signals caused by his thoughts:

Mr Wilson’s Twitter set-up contains an onscreen alphabet. The letters flash in turn, and when the letter that the user wants to type flashes, the system detects a spike in their brain activity, and selects that letter.

Justin Williams, an assistant professor who works with Mr Wilson, said: “If you’re looking at the ‘R’ on the screen and all the other letters are flashing, nothing happens. But when the ‘R’ flashes, your brain says, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Something’s different about what I was just paying attention to.’ And you see a momentary change in brain activity.”

Mr Wilson likened the process to writing a text message on a mobile phone. “You have to press a button four times to get the character you want,” he said of texting. “So this is kind of a slow process at first.”

This sort of brain messaging is ideal for systems like Twitter as Wilson explained:

“It’s difficult enough to be able to spell words, much less find an address book and select names. The overhead involved in these applications is just too much,” he said. “Twitter is very serendipitous. It handles all the things that we’ve been struggling to make easy for a patient to do.

It puts messages where people can find them. Let the world know how you’re doing, what you’re thinking, and they’ll find you. And that’s perfect for these patients and their families.”

Wilson will soon install their program in the homes of 10 people already outfitted with trial versions of the BCI2000. That system is not yet commercially available, but that day could come soon.

Liked this post? Subscribe to my blog feed or follow me on Twitter!

More articles about Twitter:

  1. Twitter May Harm Your Sense of Morality
  2. Freestyle Travelling: Using Twitter as a Tourist Tool
  3. The Twittering Office Chair that Tweets When You Fart
  4. Tweet Replies: Get Twitter Replies in Your Email Inbox
  5. Who Were the Users that Joined Twitter First?

Filed under: How People Use Twitter