Via Jack Sergant

Remote Control Device 'Controls' Humans

By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business Writer 13 minutes ago

ATSUGI, Japan - We wield remote controls to turn things on and off, make them advance, make them halt. Ground-bound pilots use remotes to fly drone airplanes, soldiers to maneuver battlefield robots.
19 OCT 2005

Prepare to be remotely controlled. I was.

Just imagine being rendered the rough equivalent of a radio-controlled toy car.

Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japans top telephone company, says it is developing the technology to perhaps make video games more realistic. But more sinister applications also come to mind.

I can envision it being added to militaries' arsenals of so-called "non-lethal" weapons.

A special headset was placed on my cranium by my hosts during a recent demonstration at an NTT research center. It sent a very low voltage electric current from the back of my ears through my head — either from left to right or right to left, depending on which way the joystick on a remote-control was moved.

I found the experience unnerving and exhausting: I sought to step straight ahead but kept careening from side to side. Those alternating currents literally threw me off.

Continues, with pic, at <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051026/ap_on_hi_te/remote_control_for_humans&printer=1;_ylt=AlpWDY2a1rE31LGa9_vr2VBk24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-" target="new">Yahoo News</a>