Mind Control

Which would you choose?

Think, and it moves.

A UK insurance company tricks out a BMW i3 with a robot pilot that receives brainwaves to let you mind-control the car.

Remember that scene in The Empire Strikes Back, when Luke Skywalker gets his hand chopped off by Darth Vader, and he gets a really cool prosthetic that looks just like his severed hand? (Spoiler alert, by the way.) Well, this technology is the predecessor to that. And while it'll be useful if your estranged father goes after your mitts with a meat clever, a mind-controlled prosthetic doesn't seem terribly important in the world of cars.

There's a long press release and a video after the jump with scads of information, but it distills to this: controlling machines with your brain. José del R. Millán, a researcher at Switzerland's EPFL, has been developing the technology both for communication and mechanical-control purposes, and Nissan Europe has partnered with the lab with an eye on taking such technology to cars.

Toyota Brain Machine Interface Wheelchair – Click above for high-res image gallery