[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFIRmnRHNUM[/youtube]
The Siri assistant implemented by Apple in iOS 5 allows users to control an iPhone 4S using simple voice commands. The idea is good, but a group of hackers wants it to take her further by controlling an iPhone 4S with the power of the mind. Basically, hackers read the brain waves in analog format and with the help of a special device they manage to transform them into commands that are spoken to Siri. That device is specially designed to read brain waves and transmit them to a voice synthesizer that turns them into voice commands that allow Siri to call a contact, send a message, make a reminder, etc.
Here's how we did it!
1. ECG pads provide raw skin conductivity / electrical activity as analogue data (0-5v).
2. This is plugged into the Arduino board via 4 analogue inputs (no activity = 0v, high activity = 5v).
3. The Arduino has a program burned to its EPROM chip that filters the signals.
4. Josh trained the program by thinking of the main Siri commands ("Call", "Set", "Diary", etc.) one at a time and the program where we captured the signature brain patterns they produce.
5. The program can detect the signature patterns that indicate a certain word is being thought of. The program will then wait for a natural 'release' in brain waves and assume the chain of commands is now complete and action is required.
6. The series of commands are fed to a SpeakJet speech synthesiser chip
7. The audio output of which simply plugs into the iPhone's microphone jack.
For the entire system to work, a MacBook Pro and a device equipped with an Arduino chip are needed, and Siri recognizes the voice commands spoken by the synthesizer in the microphone of the iPhone 4S terminal. The idea seems very sci-fi, but the guys in the images are extremely serious and will register on kickstarter to receive funding and produce a device capable of "reading" our thoughts and transmitting them to Siri. The idea itself is truly incredible but difficult to put into practice because the process proposed by the hackers is much more complex than simply speaking a command into the microphone of the iPhone 4S terminal.
