Apple patents suggest future AirPods could monitor biosignals and brain activity • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple patents suggest future AirPods could monitor biosignals and brain activity

#111

Post by twarge » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 2:40 AM UTC

thfuran wrote: post #94

twarge wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magnetic measurements are both physically possible and don't have muscle interference. For example https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.03534 is a magnetic field sensor that measures brain activity and runs off a USB port. It's probably a couple decades away, but at least it's feasible.

>It's probably a couple decades away, but at least it's feasible. That seems far outside the realm of what should be patentable.

It was novel and reduced to practice. Why can’t you patent it?

Re: Apple patents suggest future AirPods could monitor biosignals and brain activity

#112

Post by codr7 » Wed, Oct 18, 2023, 10:38 AM UTC

mepian wrote: post #68

codr7 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you be so sure? Maybe not today, but with better sensors and neural networks I'd say anything is possible. That's not what's bothering me most in the long run though. Because there's no way in hell they'll be able to resist the temptation to manipulate our brains directly if they ever develop the capability. Technology is neither good nor bad, but it enables better and worse with every iteration.

>How can you be so sure? I studied biomedical engineering, it's really difficult to get anything useful out of a human brain non-invasively even if you are Apple. Neural networks are not magic, they can't do much with such low SNR.

Yes, I understand; but no one would have expected GPT4 10 years ago, technological evolution is exponential, not linear.

Re: Apple patents suggest future AirPods could monitor biosignals and brain activity

#113

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Oct 18, 2023, 10:50 AM UTC

codr7 wrote: post #112

mepian wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How can you be so sure? I studied biomedical engineering, it's really difficult to get anything useful out of a human brain non-invasively even if you are Apple. Neural networks are not magic, they can't do much with such low SNR.

Yes, I understand; but no one would have expected GPT4 10 years ago, technological evolution is exponential, not linear.

LLMs are more an exanoke of punctuated that smooth, even exponential, when looked at vs. 10 years ago, but there’s a difference between no one would expect b/c we don’t know how, and there being a clear articulable reason why not.