Photo: SKU
Science fiction continues coming to life.
ELECTRONIC FACE TATTOO
Your boss might soon know exactly how ‘stressed you are at work’, and your car could tell when you’re ‘too mentally exhausted to drive safely’.
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have developed a “forehead e-tattoo” – a wireless, paper-thin device that sticks to your skin like a temporary tattoo and monitors your brain activity to ‘determine how mentally overloaded you are’.
The “breakthrough device” reportedly successfully ‘tracked mental workload in real-time’ during cognitive tests, representing “a major leap forward in wearable brain-monitoring technology”.
Unlike bulky brain-monitoring machines that require gel-coated electrodes and tangled wires, they say this e-tattoo is ‘so thin and flexible’ that users ‘barely notice they’re wearing it’.
Photo: TNA
I’d probably notice I was wearing that, just saying.
At just 117 micrometers thick – thinner than a human hair – and weighing only 4.1 grams without its battery, the device represents “a significant advance in portable brain monitoring”.
According to the researchers, mental workload directly impacts human cognitive performance and becomes “…particularly important in high-complexity, safety-critical tasks where reductions in performance can and have resulted in devastating losses of lives and assets.”
“Technology is developing faster than human evolution. Our brain capacity cannot keep up and can easily get overloaded,” says lead author Nanshu Lu in a statement.
“There is an optimal mental workload for optimal performance, which differs from person to person.”
The device combines two types of brain monitoring that have traditionally require separate equipment: EEG signals (brain waves) and EOG signals (eye movements) – both key indicators of mental state.
Researchers have created what they call “APC-GPU electrodes” – flexible graphite strips coated with a special adhesive polymer blend – that reportedly ‘reduces electrical resistance between the device and skin’ while’ creating a stronger bond that stays put during physical activity’.
During testing, the e-tattoo “proved remarkably resilient to movement”, say the researchers.
The scientists say they compared the new device directly to a commercial brain monitoring system and found that while the traditional system produced highly erratic readings when participants moved around, walked, or ran, the e-tattoo ‘maintained stable signals throughout these activities’.
How did they do it? They recruited six healthy adults aged 20-33 and had them perform increasingly difficult memory tasks while wearing the e-tattoo.
The test, called a “dual N-back task,” required participants to remember both the positions and letters of stimuli that appeared on a screen, with difficulty levels ranging from 0-back (easiest) to 3-back (hard).
As tasks became more demanding, the e-tattoo detected patterns in activity. Participants showed increased theta and delta brain waves – associated with mental effort – while alpha, beta, and gamma waves decreased.
Even the very language of the study cries out to its Brave New World-esque setting.
The researchers specifically mention several potential applications for their technology.
They note that mental workload assessment has been studied “…particularly for vehicle drivers, aircraft pilots, air traffic controllers, and robot teleoperators”.
However, the team acknowledges that these applications would require validation “in actual operational environments like aviation or healthcare settings” before becoming reality.
Despite this, scientists believe the system has advantages for mass production. Unlike previous technologies requiring expensive materials, this system uses commercially available components. Researchers estimate the cost of materials for each disposable e-tattoo at less than $20.
“Being low cost makes the device accessible,” says co-author Luis Sentis from UT Austin.
“One of my wishes is to turn the e-tattoo into a product we can wear at home.”
I think I might pass on buying that from the chemist and wearing it to work. Could you imagine?
Science fiction becoming reality once again, folks, and while some hurdles do remain before these devices reach everyday use, the successful demonstration in controlled conditions represents “meaningful progress toward brain-computer interfaces that could enhance safety in high-stakes occupations”.
Yes, it’s all about ‘safety’ yet again. Moving from beyond being used in the realm of meaningful medical intervention to a commercialised work and life product. As predicted.
As predicted here on the website, this was always the natural progression of brain reading technology and the dystopian mind control ideologies behind them.
BRAIN READING TECHNOLOGY
Scientists have been poking and prodding the brain for centuries in hopes of learning how this interconnected network influences thoughts, emotions, movement, mental and behavioural problems, and just about everything else that makes us human.
But we are now entering an era where science fiction concepts are truly coming to life.
In 2023, Duke University futurist, Nita Farahany, gave her “The Battle for Your Brain” speech at the World Economic Forum, detailing how ‘hacking of the brain’ has already arrived.
We have detailed here on the website for years the rise of brain-reading technology, a concept that began and spread in the medical field – but will eventually be commercialised.
Countless examples have emerged of new technology in this field, including neuro-stimulation innovations and advances for calls to ‘map the brain of children like fingerprinting’.
We have seen the same type of ‘fatigue analysis’ technology find its ways into many avenues of daily life already, including in vehicles, where Mitsubishi recently faced backlash from consumers.
Indeed, mapping the behaviours and emotions of human beings and animals is nothing new, with sophisticated mind control techniques being developed over many decades across the world.
Neuralink is one of the major players in the field of commercialisation of mind control, having live-streamed its first patient playing an online chess game using a chip implant to move the mouse last year.
Synchron, another brain-computer interface (BCI) company rivalling Elon Musk, is now incorporating OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its software.
Yes, brain implants mixed with advancing artificial intelligence capabilities.
What could possibly go wrong?
Quite a lot, according to a new report sponsored by the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense and published via the RAND website last year.
The research details how CRISPR gene-editing technology, mRNA vaccines, brain networking and other technological advancements, could unleash new forms of military conflict.
Indeed, we are entering very interesting territory. The commercialisation of mind control devices under the guise of ‘health’ and ‘security’, right as AI and the transhumanist agenda truly begins to unfold.
Many years ago, this type of concept was called a ‘radical conspiracy theory’.
Today, however, we are living in a world where these dystopian gadgets are becoming a reality very fast.
Will you be getting an ‘electronic tattoo’ to ‘help with your mental fatigue’?
Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comment section below!
KEEP UP-TO-DATE
For more TOTT News:
Facebook — Facebook.com/TOTTNews
YouTube — YouTube.com/TOTTNews
Instagram — Instagram.com/TOTTNews
Twitter — Twitter.com/EthanTOTT
Bitchute — Bitchute.com/TOTTNews
Gab — Gab.com/TOTTNews
There’s no end to the volume of reasons why this is a stupidly bad idea. For example, what if your brain stars “over firing” at work , not because you’re too busy, but because your boss is a psycho sociopath and they’re the problem, not your workload.
And on and on it goes, it doesn’t take too much imagination.
I suppose, if you were living in Canada, you could always go and kill yourself. /s?