Paralysed people could communicate and control machines just by thinking hard, thanks to a non-invasive mind-reading headband developed by Hitachi in Japan. It shines near-infrared light through the skull and measures how much is reflected by the brain. In tests, people did mental arithmetic to indicate “yes” and let their mind wander to say “no”. Working out a sum increased blood flow in the brain, which dimmed the light reflected back to the sensors, showing what the user meant.
A printer that uses plastic “paper” which can be reused up to 500 times has been developed by Japanese firm Toshiba.…
