We are not yet at the point of being able to scan people’s brains and tell what they are thinking, but what can now be done is pretty impressive. This story is about research done at UC Berkeley. The scientists first calibrated their computer by showing their two test subjects 1750 pictures of different types of object, and recording the brain activity associated with each picture. The computer also scanned the pictures and was told which scan related to which picture. They then showed the subjects and the computer 120 different pictures of the same types of objects, and asked the computer to predict, based on the brain scans and its own scans of the pictures, which object was being viewed. With one subject the computer was right 72% of the time, with the other 92% of the time. That’s impressive.

Update: The rest of the Internet is catching up with my news. 🙂

Here are Nature and The Independent