• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Departments
    • Aerospace Engineering
    • Bioengineering
    • Civil and Environmental Engineering
    • Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
    • Engineering Science
    • Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
    • Materials Science and Engineering
    • Mechanical Engineering
    • Nuclear Engineering
  • News
    • Berkeley Engineer magazine
    • Social media
    • News videos
    • News digest (email)
    • Press kit
  • Events
    • Homecoming
    • Cal Day
    • Commencement
    • View from the Top
    • Kuh Lecture Series
    • Minner Lecture
  • College directory
  • For staff & faculty
Berkeley Engineering

Educating leaders. Creating knowledge. Serving society.

  • About
    • Facts & figures
    • Rankings
    • Voices of Berkeley Engineering
    • Equity & inclusion
    • Leadership team
    • Milestones
    • Facilities
    • Maps
  • Admissions
    • Undergraduate admissions
    • Graduate admissions
    • Visit
    • Maps
    • Admissions events
    • K-12 outreach
  • Academics
    • Undergraduate programs
    • Majors & minors
    • Undergraduate Guide
    • Graduate programs
    • Graduate Guide
    • Innovation & entrepreneurship
    • Kresge Engineering Library
    • International programs
    • Executive education
  • Research & faculty
    • Centers & institutes
    • Undergrad research
    • Faculty
  • Students
    • Advising & counseling
    • Programs
    • Academic support
    • Student life
    • Wellness & inclusion
    • Undergraduate Guide
    • Degree requirements
    • Forms & petitions
    • Resources
  • Connect
    • Alumni
    • Industry
    • Give
    • Stay in touch
Home > News > Reading minds

Reading minds

May 1, 2017
This article appeared in Berkeley Engineer magazine, Spring 2017

Model head with headset

Photo by Max Curran

Looking for better cybersecurity? Forget about typing in passwords or scanning fingerprints. The next frontier of identity verification is passthoughts, the recognition of unique brainwave patterns that occur when we perform mental tasks. Now, in a significant advancement of this technology, electrical engineering and computer sciences and School of Information professor John Chuang and his research team at the BioSENSE Lab have created a passthought reader that can authenticate the wearer by reading their brainwaves. Wearing the device, users can log into their devices and accounts when they picture a specific thought. This new wearable uses an ordinary set of earbuds fitted with electroencephalograph (EEG) sensors, unlike previous versions that placed electrodes across the user’s forehead or scalp. The researchers plan to develop a real-world version of the device, as well as fine-tune its accuracy to be more responsive to the wearer’s mental and physical states.

Topics: Devices & inventions, EECS, Research, Security & privacy
  • Contact
  • Give
  • Privacy
  • UC Berkeley
  • Accessibility
  • Nondiscrimination
  • instagram
  • twitter
  • linkedin
  • facebook
  • youtube
© 2022 UC Regents