They may look cute or silly - depending on your view of view - but these ears are cutting-edge technology.
They can read your brain waves and transmit how you're feeling ... in ear movements.
When you are relaxed or bored, the ears lie flat, when you are concentrating or focused they perk up, and even wiggle if you are amused.
The "Necomimi", which means "cat's ears" in Japanese, launched in May but are set to go on sale at the end of the year, and was picked by Time magazine as one of the year's 50 best inventions.
Its goals are simple - it has two brain-wave sensors that can detect and interpret what you are thinking, and show it through four different movements.
"We were exploring new ways of communicating and we thought it would be interesting to use brainwaves," Kana Nakano of Neurowear told Agence France-Presse earlier this year.
"Because the sensors must be attached to the head, we tried to come up with something cute and catchy."
While having brainwave sensors attached to a pair of fluffy ears may seem a frivolous, it is one example of the increasing accessibility of such technology, and how it can be used not just for high-end medical equipment, but also for children's toys and games.
The catch though is that accurately reading EEG signals, which these technologies are attempting to do, can be difficult because of amount of "noise" a brain generates.
Associate Professor Ross Cunnington of the Queensland Brain Institute, who is developing brain computer interfaces for communication, said the industry is moving in two streams.
"We're really going to have this split - the gimmicky toys and games that will get just more reliable and the medical-type applications, which is more challenging because they will never be used until they are entirely reliable.
"At the moment, that's entirely within a research field. But what's coming out of the research field is driving a lot of the commercial applications in gaming and toys."
Associate Professor Cunnington said the key to improving the technology was data.
The more data is fed into these systems, the more accurate they become in reading EEG (encephalogram) signals, he said, adding that the main costs were associated with the development of signal processing.
"The technology really relies on the computer learning. What is the pattern that represents happy? What is a pattern that represents sad? And those patterns are going to defer a lot between individual people.
"One of the big applications currently is detecting drowsiness or fatigue in people driving, especially truck drivers. That's also proved incredibly difficult to work reliably enough that the driver will wear it and use it.
"In a toy or a game, not having 100 per cent reliability is not a problem ... In situations where there is safety involved, it's really important that it works."
This year alone, German scientists announced they are working on a system that harnesses a driver's brainwaves to control their car's emergency braking system.
In Japan, developers from car manufacturer Nissan and Swiss University Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne are using technology developed for disabled people to manipulate their wheelchairs to create a car that can be driven with just your mind.
And in Australia, Emotiv Systems has for some time been selling a wireless headset for people to play computer games using their thoughts alone.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/techno ... z1ePgJdoR2
Is she making ears at me?
Is she making ears at me?
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Is she making ears at me?
They would be great, as is, for monitoring children in hospitals.
Bah!
Re: Is she making ears at me?
It would also help my dog understand what I'm feeling.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
~ Carl Sagan
Re: Is she making ears at me?
bigskygal wrote:It would also help my dog understand what I'm feeling.
I was going to say that it would help my cat understand what I'm feeling, until I remembered that she doesn't give a rat's patootie...
edited because I posted BSG's quote without acutally typing anything myself the first time around. Must have more coffee.
Re: Is she making ears at me?
In the pictures all the girls have an Asian look about them.
What if these ears don't understand English?
What if these ears don't understand English?
Sometimes it seems as though one has to cross the line just to figger out where it is
Re: Is she making ears at me?
Do brain waves have a language?
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
~ Carl Sagan
Re: Is she making ears at me?
I don't know download the full text and see...
Abstract
The present study investigated whether emotional states influence the neural processing of language. Event-related potentials recorded the brain's response to positively and negatively valenced words (e.g., love vs. death) while participants were directly induced into positive and negative moods. ERP electrodes in frontal scalp regions of the brain distinguished positive and negative words around 400 ms poststimulus. The amplitude of this negative waveform showed a larger negativity for positive words compared to negative words in the frontal electrode region when participants were in a positive, but not negative, mood. These findings build on previous research by demonstrating that people process affective language differently when in positive and negative moods, and lend support to recent views that emotion and cognition interact during language comprehension.
Sometimes it seems as though one has to cross the line just to figger out where it is
Re: Is she making ears at me?
Is that a flashlight in your ears or are you just glad to see me?
Re: Is she making ears at me?
Im not sure my dog cares, either, as long as what I am thginking does not disturb his 12 hours of sleep every day.kristina wrote:bigskygal wrote:It would also help my dog understand what I'm feeling.
I was going to say that it would help my cat understand what I'm feeling, until I remembered that she doesn't give a rat's patootie...
Treat Gaza like Carthage.
Re: Is she making ears at me?
No, no those ears are only for cats, they're Necomimi - cat's ears. To get your dog to understand you, you need to get a different communicator the Inushippo - dog tail.