The BBC wants you to control your television with your thoughts

You know what really sucks? Changing the channel using a handheld remote. Ok… so it doesn’t really suck that much, but that isn’t stopping the BBC from making the process even easier. In what sounds like something from a science fiction movie, the company has announced that it’s currently testing out a way to control your television using nothing but your thoughts, although the technology is still in the experimental stage. 

Picture the scene, you’re sitting through a boring film, when all of a sudden the TV switches to the football simply through the power of your mind. It might sound far-fetched, but mind control television could soon become a reality – as the BBC revealed yesterday it is working on technology that could one day replace the remote. In tests of a prototype, users were able to operate a headset that allowed them to navigate through BBC iPlayer and select what they wanted to watch by concentrating or meditating. Both these activities produce a change in brain activity, which the device can detect. Cyrus Saihan, head of business development at BBC Digital, said the technology was at still an ‘experimental’ stage. Writing in a BBC blog, he said a trial run with ten staff members found they could all use the headset to launch iPlayer and start watching a programme. He continued: ‘You can imagine a world where instead of having to get up from your sofa or reach for your remote, you just think “put BBC1 on” when you want to watch TV.