Remote Control Device 'Controls' Humans

Yay !

We wield remote controls to turn things on and off, make them advance, make them halt. Ground-bound pilots use remotes to fly drone airplanes, soldiers to maneuver battlefield robots.

Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japans top telephone company, says it is developing the technology to perhaps make video games more realistic. But more sinister applications also come to mind.

I can envision it being added to militaries' arsenals of so-called "non-lethal" weapons.

A special headset was placed on my cranium by my hosts during a recent demonstration at an NTT research center. It sent a very low voltage electric current from the back of my ears through my head — either from left to right or right to left, depending on which way the joystick on a remote-control was moved.

I found the experience unnerving and exhausting: I sought to step straight ahead but kept careening from side to side. Those alternating currents literally threw me off.

The technology is called galvanic vestibular stimulation — essentially, electricity messes with the delicate nerves inside the ear that help maintain balance.

I felt a mysterious, irresistible urge to start walking to the right whenever the researcher turned the switch to the right. I was convinced — mistakenly — that this was the only way to maintain my balance.

The phenomenon is painless but dramatic. Your feet start to move before you know it. I could even remote-control myself by taking the switch into my own hands.

There's no proven-beyond-a-doubt explanation yet as to why people start veering when electricity hits their ear. But NTT researchers say they were able to make a person walk along a route in the shape of a giant pretzel using this technique.

It's a mesmerizing sensation similar to being drunk or melting into sleep under the influence of anesthesia. But it's more definitive, as though an invisible hand were reaching inside your brain.

NTT says the feature may be used in video games and amusement park rides, although there are no plans so far for a commercial product.

Some people really enjoy the experience, researchers said while acknowledging that others feel uncomfortable.

Sounds like virtual parkinsons disease to me. Yay. It might be fun to try.

news.yahoo.com...

Much evil comes to mind.

Great time to bring up the TinFoil Listening Device. What that is, is a pair of headphones, hooked into a sound magnifacation unit. In return you will still be able hear stuff, then you can no longer be mind controled by sound from the unit(s).

EDIT: Hehe, when they start to market it as a VR device, I will deff check it out. It would be awesome to Trip out and when you want to leave, just turn it off. And you will be fine.

I give this device as a means to Entertainment

Like they said "Evil things come to mind"

[edit on 26-10-2005 by Harvestfreak]

I was gonna post this exact same story, but i didn't know how to link to aol news. It's pretty funny actually, they aren't even trying to pretend like they don't wanna control us anymore! you know what's interesting though, it says some people find it soothing, while others find it uncomfortable. I wonder if the difference between the 2 is that maybe some people are just really easily subjective? Maybe the difference is that some people are just brainwashed enough that to them the idea of being controlled isn't bad so they subconsciously think it's entertaining. It is really odd that they would want this device to work via your head. I have a degree in audio science, and a lot of what they are saying about this device doesn't make sense to me. Yes it's true that you might be off balance or feel drunk, but that doesn't explain why you would have urges to get up and walk somewhere, or how you would be able to make someone walk a pretzel shaped maze. They apparently saying that its because they are rattling the nerve endings in your EARS...yeah ok. That thing is going directly to your brain and controlling it. You know how you get dizzy from spinning in circles, well as far as i know that has something to do with your inner ear. Now if they are basically rattling the stuff inside your ear around, wouldn't you just get dizzy and fall over eventually? The fact that they are saying that the current is going from one ear to the other actually proves that it's going right through your brain. A q-tip cant pass from 1 ear to the other without causing some serious damage, so what do you think this thing is gonna do? None of the scientific explanation makes sense to me, but I may be wrong because they are pretty vague on why this thing actually works, but all im gonna say is that there is something very fishy, and quite possibly scary about this.

I was thinking of something like this recently...does it have something to do with "tickling" the motor cortex?

that is dangous it like ghost in shell or something

Intereting article, and the reporter mentions the one thing I thought of -- crowd control devices to control riots, looters, gang violence, etc. But the fact that it only works on some (and only when you have devices attached to you) makes it fairly useless on a broad scale.

I wonder if the same ones who were uncomfortable are the same group that I'm in -- folks who can't play POV games. I get fairly seasick with them, and have to put Warcraft on an angled view to be able to play it comfortably.