Dec 12 2008 Invasion Of Privacy: Scientists Aim To Extract Images/Dreams Directly From Your Brain

A team of Japanese researchers believe they're well on the way to developing a technology capable of displaying whatever is on a person's mind. Including pictures, dreams, and, God willing, sex with dinosaurs.

While the team for now has managed to reproduce only simple images from the brain, they said the technology could eventually be used to figure out dreams and other secrets inside people's minds.

"It was the first time in the world that it was possible to visualize what people see directly from the brain activity," the private institute said in a statement.

"By applying this technology, it may become possible to record and replay subjective images that people perceive like dreams."

Say, this reminds me of one of my own favorite dreams: I exit my cave wearing only an animal pelt. I spot a triceratops -- it catches my gaze. I approach and begin tenderly rubbing its horns while making cooing sounds. The beast gores me. I lay in the mud, bleeding to death. With my last breath I reach out to touch its genitals and....it crushes my arm with a single stomp from one of its massive legs. i wake from the dream dripping sweat, and also, other stuff. Damn -- I should write romance novels!

Dreams may no longer be secret with Japan computer screen [yahoonews]

Thanks to austin, Derrick, Ain and Zombie Bob, who have the ability to make your dreams come true, but only if you buy their set of instructional video for three easy payments of $39.95.

Mar 6 2008 Scary: Brain Scanner Knows What You See

Soon computers will be able to know what you're looking at simply by reading your mind.

Scientists used a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine -- a real-time brain scanner -- to record the mental activity of a person looking at thousands of random pictures: people, animals, landscapes, objects, the stuff of everyday visual life. With those recordings the researchers built a computational model for predicting the mental patterns elicited by looking at any other photograph.

Wow, this is getting scary. Except for safety devices and video games, I'm afraid of the uses for this technology. I've been able to read minds for awhile now, and I've got to tell you, you don't always want to. Like right now the cat lying beside me is thinking about eating a bird. Which isn't so bad. But my roommate, who's playing Guitar Hero, is thinking about trying to mash the buttons with his pecker. Which is so bad, because it's my controller.

NOTE: I have no idea what the hell those pictures prove. I just posted them because that's what the other website had up. I think they might be Grateful Dead t-shirt designs.

Brain Scanner Can Tell What You're Looking At [wired]

Thanks to Billy Avenue, who is way cooler than a street, for the tip