We all get moody from time to time. Thrown off our game by diets, workloads, stress factors, bad news, arguments with our significant others or even just something annoying that one of our friends said. Wouldn’t it be great then if there was a way to simply and easily alter our moods to avoid feeling down or depressed? Well, soon that may be possible and we may even be able to use a smart phone app to pull it off. Thanks to new a brain implant the size of a grain of salt that would be capable of changing how we feel.
According to the Daily Star:
“Korean scientists have developed a brain implant with LEDs the size a grain of salt which could control our moods via a smartphone.
The amazing researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have even worked out how to charge the device from outside the body.
The bluetooth-enabled nanochips use light to emit messages to the brain’s neurons and scientists believe it could eventually be used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and depression.”
This may sound far-fetched but it was just successfully used to cure addiction in mice so perhaps there really is hope for this technology. Just so long as you don’t mind getting the implant in your brain in the first place!
But wait, there’s more! Video game maker Valve is also working on BCI (Brain Computer Interface) tech that would also be capable of editing people’s feelings in addition to making the visuals in video games far exceed what reality can offer as 1 News in New Zealand details:
“Aside from just reading people’s brain signals, [Gabe] Newell also discussed the near-future reality of being able to write signals to people’s minds — to change how they’re feeling or deliver better-than-real visuals in games.
He said BCIs will lead to gaming experiences far better than a player could get through their ‘meat peripherals’ — as in, their eyes and ears.
‘You’re used to experiencing the world through eyes,’ Newell said, ‘but eyes were created by this low-cost bidder that didn’t care about failure rates and RMAs, and if it got broken there was no way to repair anything effectively, which totally makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, but is not at all reflective of consumer preferences.’
‘So the visual experience, the visual fidelity we’ll be able to create — the real world will stop being the metric that we apply to the best possible visual fidelity.’
‘The real world will seem flat, colorless, blurry compared to the experiences you’ll be able to create in people’s brains.’
‘Where it gets weird is when who you are becomes editable through a BCI,’ Newell said.
At the moment, people accept their feelings are just how they feel — but Newell says BCIs will soon allow the editing of these feelings digitally, which could be as easy as using an app.
‘One of the early applications I expect we’ll see is improved sleep — sleep will become an app that you run where you say, ‘Oh, I need this much sleep, I need this much REM,’ he said.
Another benefit could be the reduction or total removal of unwanted feelings or conditions from the brain, for therapeutic reasons.”
Being able to fall asleep on demand is one of my most requested technological wishes so if this technology can really pull that off in addition to editing our feelings and creating insanely immersive video game experiences then I’m all in on BCIs!
Is mood altering implants and technology the Greatest Idea Ever?
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