Mind games: Gadget lets users play pinball using brain power only

DEVICES allowing people to write letters or play pinball using just the power of their brains have become a major draw at the world’s biggest high-tech fair.

Huge crowds at the CeBIT fair gathered round a man sitting at a pinball table, wearing a cap covered in electrodes attached to his head, who controlled the flippers with great proficiency without using hands.

“He thinks: left-hand or right-hand and the electrodes monitor the brain waves associated with that thought, send the information to a computer, which then moves the flippers,” said Michael Tangermann, from the Berlin Brain Computer Interface.