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Scientists who claim to have discovered a way of translating people¶s thoughts into words are
soon coming out with a mind reading machine. An
international team, led by Prof Bradley Greger of
Utah University, has been able to translate, for the
¿rst time, brain signals into speech using sensors
attached to the brain. The experimental
breakthrough, which is up to 90 per cent accurate,
o ers a way to communicate for paralyzed
patients who cannot speak and could eventually
lead to being able to read anyone thoughts. The
team achieved the experimental breakthrough
when it attached two button sized grids of 16 tiny
electrodes to the speech centres of the brain of an epileptic patient who had part of his skull
removed for another operation. Using the electrodes, the scientists recorded brain signals as
the patient repeatedly read each of 10 words that might be useful to a paralyzed person: yes,
no, hot, cold, hungry, thirsty, hello, goodbye, more and less. Then they got him to repeat the
words to the computer and it was able to match the brain signals for each word 76 per cent to
90 percent of the time.

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If BlackBerry creates problems for corporate email users on the move because it cannot
comply with the security monitoring norms of the government, a home-grown ¿rm is ready to
o er a similar service with that problem removed. BharatBerry, dubbed as ³an India
compliant end-to-end service´ is a venture started by Ajay Data, 36, from Rajasthan.
BharatBerry service (in which handsets are not made by the ¿rm) aims to address one million
BlackBerry users if Research In Motion fails to comply with government requirements that it
must allow interventions to help law enforcers trying to check abuse of con¿dential corporate
mail by terror groups. It might not be quite the thing for multi-nationals with a global foot-
print, but the a ordability makes it quite Indian as it is available for monthly fee that is a
fraction of base-level BlackBerry o ers. ³We have tested the service thoroughly on all
BlackBerry models and it works well with all of them. It is a completely secure, fully tested
and totally reliable service for as low as Rs 250 a month,´ Data said.