Couch potatoes rejoice, the gods of entertainment have heard your cries of dismay.
In the near future, you might be able to pause and swap between shows on Netflix just by thinking about it.
Despite how far-fetched that sounds, the technology is actually something currently being considered by the company. As part of its recurring ‘Hack Day’ events, Netflix gives its product development team free reign to design and conceptualise the most outlandish technology and prototypes they can think of. This time around, one of the entries was a brain-synced remote control.
The project, called Mindflix, uses a Muse headband, a device launched at CES 2016 that detects the wearer’s Electroencephalographic (EEG) waves. Originally designed to detect and push brainwave representations to an app, as an assistive meditation tool, the Netflix team have tweaked the headband for their own purposes.
Wearing the headband, you can nod your head up and down to select your choice of viewing from the vast array. After that, you can simply think ‘Play’ and the video will comply. Of course, this isn’t yet a serious feature, and is instead more of a playful idea, yet it’s not very far from the current trend. Tech researchers are already delving into a multitude of ways humans can interact with devices, and this isn’t the first time telepathic control has been suggested.
Now, it’s important to consider two things. Firstly, specifically using something like the Muse headband to control a device would be hard, as it measures brainwaves. That being said, a typical EEG shows the chaos of multiple thoughts in a person’s mind at a time. You’d have to be in a semi-meditative state to be able to use the remote, something that’s just not possible for everyone.
That being said, the technology is definitely on the right track, as it’s now only a matter of tweaking how such a device would sort through the (likely multiple) signals it’s receiving and select the optimal input. From there, it’s a simple matter of combining the EEG sensor with a VR or AR headset. Not only would it be a godsend for those too lazy to reach for the remote, but it would also benefit those physically unable to use one. And if current research is anything to go by, we’re likely to see this sci-fi pipe dream become a reality within the next 10 years.
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 "video streaming services, Netflix, Mindflix, Muse headband, Wearable Technology, EEG")
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