Take Pictures With Your Mind With Google Glass

Move over, Professor X. A London company has created a hack of Google Glass that enables users to take a picture using the power of their mind.

Google Glass users can now take a picture without moving a muscle using an ingenious hack — if they’re wearing an electroencephalography (EEG) headset in conjunction with the glasses. It turns out that it’s possible to activate the built-in camera simply by concentrating on the target image.

The pictures can then be shared online simply by thinking about it. London-based start-up company The Place came up with the hack and they’ve released the MindRDR software for free, but Google has stressed that it doesn’t support it.

EEG headsets have become increasingly affordable. They function by monitoring when certain parts of the brain show greater activity.

With MindRDR, the user sees a white line in a window in the corner of their right eye, which gets bigger and then a photo is taken.

The hack would allow users to function without vocal commands, but the additional headset may make them even more conspicuous than they’d already be wearing Google Glass.

“We wanted to realize the true potential of Glass by allowing users to control it with their minds,” said Dusan Hamlin, chief executive of This Place. “Currently, users either have to touch it or use voice commands, which are restrictive for some social situations and for users with disabilities.”

One of the major applications to daily life could be assisting people with disabilities such as severe multiple sclerosis or quadriplegia to interact with the world.

At present, the technology needs a lot of work, and MindRDR is limited to a small number of functions, but the application’s creators have turned to developer community GitHub to try and encourage programmers around the world to improve it.

It may sound like something from a science-fiction horror film, but brainwave control is on track to becoming a reality — and MindRDR could be the start of something massive.