Sony takes 3-D cinema directly to the brain

THE cult sci-fi movie The Matrix might not have such an improbable plot after all.
The first step towards a real-life version, in which cyber-reality is projected into the brains of people via an electrode feed, could be just over the horizon.

cyber world 資訊〈網路〉互動世界
cyber reality 網路〈互動〉實境
virtual reality 虛擬實境


Sony, the Japanese entertainment giant, has patented an idea for transmitting data directly into the brain, with the goal of enabling a person to see films and play video games in which they smell, taste and perhaps even feel things, New Scientist magazine says.

The patent is based purely on theory, not on any invention.

In Sony’s patent, the technique would be entirely noninvasive非入侵性. It would not use brain implants or other surgery. The patent has few details, describing only a device that would fire pulses of ultrasound 超音波脈衝 at the head to modify the firing patterns of neurons 神經元 in targeted parts of the brain.

The aim, it says, is to create “sensory experiences”, ranging from moving images to tastes and sounds.