Business tries to cash in on brainwaves
(CNN) — Ever driven down a highway while struggling to stay awake? You’re not alone.
In the United States, nearly 40 percent of the driving population has either momentarily nodded off or completely fallen asleep at the wheel at least once, and each year tens of thousands of accidents occur because of driver drowsiness, according to studies by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
One solution that could soon reach the market: headsets that read brainwaves and other physiological signals to monitor a driver’s alertness. A California start-up called NeuroSky makes the technology, which can be incorporated into everyday products made by consumer electronics manufacturers.
We’re working with several automotive-related companies to do drowsiness detection for drivers, pilots, truckers or train conductors, says NeuroSky CEO Stanley Yang, though he can’t disclose partner names yet.
NeuroSky’s business model works a bit like Intel’s: it sells components that go into a final product made by someone else. So while its sensor component is placed against the forehead to pick up bio-signals, different manufacturers can come up with a variety of headset designs. Makers of video games, massage chairs and music players have expressed interest.
We have two technologies, explains Yang. One is the sensor, and one is the our library of algorithms. We sell the same identical sensor hardware — basically a chip — to everybody. But depending on your application, you need different algorithms.
(Included in NeuroSky’s systems development kit is a library of mental states. From that, says Yang, you pick and choose what you want, and then once you’re done we generate this driver file that can be embedded in your sensor.)
Because the start-up’s technology is aimed at manufacturers, it will take a while before products incorporating it reach the market. But Sega Toys announced it will incorporate NeuroSky components into upcoming products, and announcements from other companies are expected soon.
Good science?
Investors beware, though: start-ups trumpeting brainwave-related breakthroughs have come and gone before. In the late 1990s Capita Research promised the future of advertising by reading brainwaves to measure responses to marketing campaigns. And video games where players control on-screen action with their thoughts have failed to catch on in the past.
Pretty much every 10 years since the late 1960s, a new generation of engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs has tried to make a real ‘mind-reading’ device, notes Alan Gevins, founder of Sam Technology, a neurotechnology research company in San Francisco.
NeuroSky might have better odds of success (or prolonged survival) because of its components-based business model: if its technology fails to catch on in one area, there could still be hope in others.
Helping sleepy drivers might be a promising area, but much depends on the science.
There is definitely potential to measure hazardous states of awareness with brainwave monitors, says Olafur S. Palsson, an associate professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (But) I do not know what kind of algorithm they plan to use to measure inattention — that’s the key, and requires real research behind it.
There are other systems for keeping drivers awake, including ones that track eyelid movements or head positioning. But NeuroSky hopes that cost will give it an advantage: Because it sells only components, brainwave-reading features can be added to existing product lines for relatively little.
Meanwhile, legislation encouraging drivers to use cell phone headsets could help the start-up. A law has been signed in California, for instance, that will make it illegal to talk on a cell phone while driving — unless a headset or speaker system is used. By expanding the market for headsets, in general, such laws could drive demand for added features as well.
Given how common dozing off at the wheel is, the technology, if it works and takes off in the market, could significantly boost road safety — and save lives.
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