MIT student Arlene Ducao has invented a bike helmet that can read your mind. It can’t come up with specific info like “oh, I can see you would like a turkey sandwich right now” or “wow, you think Anne Hathaway is really annoying,” but it does have some sense of your mental state. And this sense comes from reading the brain’s electroencephalogram (EEG) feedback. This information is then transformed into an LED display on the back of the helmet that gives motorists, other riders, and pedestrians general information about the biker’s current stress level. Green means calm, red means high stress, and blinking lights mean the rider is freaking the fuck out.
This helmet, called Mind Rider, is just the beginning. Ducao’s vision for the next gen Mind Rider involves a greater range of both intelligence and communication with the outside world. She plans to expand the range of mental states the helmet can recognize, and maybe to include proximity sensors, which would allow riders to know whether they were about to cream into something. We hope she’s also working on a light that will flash a signal meaning “Yes, they are!” when bikers wonder if their shorts are too tight.
