UNDER THE SKIN JESSE CROSSE
THE LATEST BRAINWAVE FROM FORD: MIND CONTROL
THE OLD EXPRESSION ‘I would like to pick your brains for a minute’ could soon become literal as car manufacturers look for ways to read a driver’s mind. Ford recently announced a research programme in collaboration with Uniklinik RWTH in Aachen, Germany (which conveniently is also the location of Ford’s Aachen Research and Innovation Centre), to see if it’s possible to spot dangerous lapses of concentration more quickly by monitoring brain activity.
The researchers hope to identify brain responses that indicate imminent lapses in concentration caused by driver fatigue. The aim is to try to link those brain responses to physical manifestations, such as a change in heartbeat rate, which could be detected by wearable technology and allow the car to give the driver a nudge.