Ads made easy: Sony will connect straight to the brain

Remember the chhota you craving for that enticing bar of Cadbury's in a TVC just a couple of years back? Now, imagine watching the same advert with you getting to feel the creamy richness of chocolate flooding your mouth.

That's the tantalising prospect raised by a Sony Corp. patent on a device for transmitting sensory data directly into the human brain.

This is how the device will work in theory. It will transmit pulses of ultrasound at the brain to modify the firing patterns of neurons in targeted parts of the brain, creating 'sensory experiences' and enabling prospective consumers to smell, taste and perhaps even feel things. The patent claims, this could give blind or deaf people the chance to see or hear.

Clearly, the marketers are going to love this. In the Indian context a few years down the road, you may be watching charming Aryan endorsing Pepsi, while sipping a 'virtual fizz'. Aryan, of course, is Shah Rukh Khan's son.

The prospects are enormous. Thanks to the technology, among contemporary brands, you may enjoy the softness of a Raymonds suit, or a rustle of a Garden Vareli saree. It's also possible that the creative director's job to seduce the customer will be taken over by Sony's machines. All the TVC has to do is to provide a close-up of the product, the machines will do the rest.

Also, if Sony manages to build its device, it will be the first step towards a real-life Matrix. Remember, the Keanu Reeves starrer?

The technique suggested in the patent is entirely non-invasive as Sony's patent avoids using brain implants or other surgery. Details about the device and the technology are sparse, but prima facie, independent experts are not dismissing the idea out of hand.

"I looked at it and found it plausible," Niels Birbaumer, a pioneering neuroscientist at the University of Tübingen in Germany, who has created devices that let people control devices via brain waves, has said.

Of course, no one is sure about what the effect of pounding the brain with ultrasound will be. And yes, quite a few people will have reservations of turning their brains to Japanese scientists and allow them to reprogramme it.

Last but not the least: The device will connect straight to your brain, only if you have one. So, you and I needn't bother too much.

© 2005 agencyfaqs!