Advanced Computing in the Age of AI | Thursday, March 28, 2024

MIT Course Puts Tech on the Brain 

<img style="float: left;" src="http://media2.hpcwire.com/dmr/neurotech.jpg" alt="" width="95" height="54" />It used to be that passwords were just that—a word. Then they had to include a number, and many sites now require a special character like an asterisk or exclamation point as well. But as websites require increasingly complex passwords, they become increasingly difficult to users remember, creating a problem all of its own—a problem MIT believes neurotechnology can solve.

It used to be that passwords were just that—a word. Then they had to include a number, and many sites now require a special character like an asterisk or exclamation point as well. But as websites require increasingly complex passwords to hopefully deter account hacking, the passwords become increasingly difficult to remember, creating a problem all of its own.

Hoping to put a stop to this downward spiral of password complexity is a graduate student at MIT, whose work suggests that the solution to these sorts of problems won't be technological, but neurotechnological, meaning it will blend existing technology with neuroscience.

While it may sound like creating a theft-proof password is exclusive to MIT engineers, the prototype demonstrated by graduate student Ralph Rodriguez is simple enough for anyone to use. When Rodriguez demonstrated the device for his class, the interface consisted only of four colored squares that Rodriguez pressed in a particular order.

It sounds easy enough to crack, but even after he showed his passcode to the entire class, no one else could unlock the device.

The secret was a series of sensors that registered subtle variations in timing and pressure when each user entered the code, enabling it to distinguish between Rodriguez and anyone else. Although it's only a prototype, the technology shows promise for keeping sensitive information and devices out of the wrong hands.

Currently, Rodriguez has three patents pending on the system, along with his own company dedicated to its development.

And this is only one neurotechnology application emerging from MIT's “Neurotechnology Ventures” course, in which students develop a technology based on the brain, psychology, artificial intelligent or neurobiology that they then plan a business around.

Other business concepts that have come from the class include a system for monitoring the emotional states of visitors to a website; a device that maps the precise location of a probe's insertion into the brain that could inform follow-up treatments; and an eyeglass-mounted system that can help diagnose a number of brain conditions, from concussions to epilepsy.

What many of the projects coming out of “Neurotechnology Ventures” underscore is technology's usefulness in supplementing our own biology, but perhaps more interestingly, a few projects (such as Rodriguez's electronic lock) are giving us a glimpse of how our own biology can further technology instead.

Full story at MIT

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