The prospect for mind controlling matter dates to 1875, when Richard Caton discovered that you could peer into the workings of the brain by detecting its electrical impulses. In 1929 came the first electroencephalograph—the EEG machine.

NeuroSky gets the device to focus on the correct signals from the forehead—that extremely noisy brain area—filtering out everything else. “The sensors you are seeing today are first generation,” says Yang. “You have to wear it. The second generation can sense your brain waves and other bio-signals from a distance. Like sensors in your car seats that can go through clothes without touching you.”

Yang wants the car to know if you are falling asleep. Or drunk. Or wishing the air conditioning would go on, or the music would play more softly. He is talking with the Japanese telephone company NTT DoCoMo about cellphones. Its brain lab has looked at over 300 mind-over-matter products, he says.
_Joel Garreau, LATWP