Mar 27, 2015

Is Google planning a microchip for people's brains?

  • Google faces major backlash over claims it colluded with U.S. authorities to open a 'back door' to users' personal information
  • But it nevertheless intends to leverage the wealth of data it holds on people to offer them increasingly personalised search results
  • The ultimate ambition is to get inside users' heads with microchips that will download search results straight into their brains
By Damien Gayle

Just a stepping stone... A woman models Google Glass, which is being trialled across the U.S. Google hopes one day to use microchips in users' brains
Just a stepping stone... A woman models Google Glass, which is being trialled across the U.S. Google hopes one day to use microchips in users' brains

Online advertising giant Google's new wearable accessories are merely a stepping stone to its ultimate ambition - a microchip which can be embedded in users' brains.
The company, which uses its search, email and other services to funnel personalised advertising to users, is currently trialling prototypes of its Glass device, which is worn like a pair of glasses.
But Google is staking its future on a new service which will use the information it holds on registered users to automatically predict their search needs and present them with the data they want.
The ultimate ambition is to literally get inside users' heads: using search queries to read their thoughts and then fulfilling their data needs by sending results directly to microchips implanted into people's brains.
Ben Gomes, Google's Vice-President of Search told The Independent that the sinister-sounding vision is far from a sci-fi fantasy and that research had already begun with such chips to help disabled people steer their wheelchairs.
'They are getting a few senses of direction with the wheelchair but getting from there to actual words is a long ways off,' he said.
'We have to do this in the brain a lot better to make that interaction possible. We have impatience for that to happen but the pieces of technology have to develop.'
But standing in the way of this ambition is a major civil liberties backlash over claims that Google has conspired with U.S. authorities to open a 'back door' to data it holds on its hundreds of millions of users, allowing spies to monitor their online activities.
The company, whose 'Don't be evil' motto has long attracted derision from privacy campaigners, is alleged to have allowed analysts from the National Security Agency to 'mine' the terabytes of personal information it holds.
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