After months of tweaking, researchers are finally ready to show off a high-tech headband that can translate Stephen Hawking’s brain waves into speech – providing what could eventually become an easier avenue for the paralyzed British physicist and many others to share their deep thoughts.
The system, developed by San Diego-based NeuroVigil and known as iBrain, uses a head-mounted receiver the size of a matchbox to pick up different types of brain waves. iBrain employs a computer algorithm called SPEARS to analyze the brain emanations and encode them for a text-based speech reader…