Scientists Develop "Synthetic Telepathy"

Pretty soon it seems like time travel will be the only subject science fiction writers have left, and at the rate science is progressing, perhaps that will be outdated soon as well. Currently the army is financing technology that allows e-mail or voice mail to be sent by thought alone.

Known as "synthetic telepathy," the technology reads electrical activity in the brain using an electroencephalograph, or EEG. For what, the exact purpose other than 'convert operations' is still unknown according to MSNBC, but the researchers working on the project expect it to trickle down to consumer use eventually--perhaps for the video games of the future.

"I think that this will eventually become just another way of communicating," said Mike D'Zmura, from the University of California, Irvine and the lead scientist of the project. "It will take a lot of research, and a lot of time, but there are also a lot of commercial applications, not just military applications," he said.

Similar forms of the technology appeared in the 1960s to send morse code through brain waves, but sending complete thoughts is completely unprecedented. Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland are also working on the project, and hope individuals will be able to use it to send thoughts to a radio or to a printable e-mail.

"The eventual application I see is for students sitting in the back of the lecture hall not paying attention because they are texting," added D'Zmura. "Instead, students could be back there, just thinking to each other."

The team is also hopeful the technology will be used in medical practice, such as with patients with Lou Gehrig's disease, or who are deaf or dumb.

One hopes that however the technology for synthetic telepathy works--it comes with an off switch too.

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