Imagine a line of affordable toys controlled by the player’s brainwaves. By interpreting biosignals picked up by the dry electroencephalogram (EEG) electrodes in an included headset, the game could infer the wearer’s level of concentration, through which it would be possible to move physical objects or interact with virtual characters. You might naturally assume such devices would be on the cutting-edge of modern technology, perhaps even a spin-off from one of the startups currently investigating brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

But the toys in question weren’t the talk of 2025’s Consumer Electronics Show, nor 2024, or even 2020. In actual fact, the earliest model is now nearly as old as the original iPhone. Such is the fascinating story of a line of high-tech toys based on the neural sensor technology developed by a company called Neurosky, the first of which was released all the way back in 2009.

Yet despite considerable interest leading up to their release — fueled at least in part by the fact that one of the models featured Star Wars branding and gave players the illusion of Force powers — the devices failed to make any lasting impact, and have today largely fallen into obscurity. The last toy based on Neurosky’s technology was released in 2015, and disappeared from the market only a few years later.

I had all but forgotten about them myself, until I recently came across a complete Mattel Mindflex at a thrift store for $8.99. It seemed a perfect opportunity to not only examine the nearly 20 year old toy, but to take a look at the origins of the product, and find out what ultimately became of Neurosky’s EEG technology. Was the concept simply ahead of its time? In an era when most people still had flip phones, perhaps consumers simply weren’t ready for this type of BCI. Or was the real problem that the technology simply didn’t work as advertised?

Shall We Play a Game?

NeuroSky was founded in 1999 to explore commercial applications for BCIs, and as such, they identified two key areas where they thought they could improve upon hardware that was already on the market: cost, and ease of use.

Cost is an easy enough metric to understand and optimize for in this context — if you’re trying to incorporate your technology into games and consumer gadgets, cheaper is better. To reduce costs, their hardware wasn’t as sensitive or as capable as what was available in the medical and research fields, but that wasn’t necessarily a problem for the sort of applications they had in mind.

Of course, it doesn’t matter how cheap you make the hardware if manufacturers can’t figure out how to integrate it into their products, or users can’t make any sense of the information. The average person certainly wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of the raw data coming from electroencephalography or electromyography sensors, and the engineers looking to graft BCI features into their consumer products weren’t likely to do much better.

To address this, NeuroSky’s technology presented the user with simple 0 to 100 values for more easily conceptualized parameters like concentration and anxiety based on their alpha and beta brainwaves. This made integration into consumer devices far simpler, albeit at the expense of accuracy and flexibility. The user could easily see when values were going up and down, but whether or not those values actually corresponded with a given mental state was entirely up to the interpretation being done inside the hardware.

These values were easy to work with, and with some practice, NeuroSky claimed the user could manipulate them by simply focusing their thoughts. So in theory, a home automation system could watch one of these mental parameters and switch on the lights when the value hit a certain threshold. But the NeuroSky BCI could never actually sense what the user was thinking — at best, it could potentially determine how hard an individual was concentrating on a specific thought. Although in the end, even that was debatable.

The Force Awakens

After a few attempted partnerships that never went anywhere, NeuroSky finally got Mattel interested in 2009. The result was the Mindflex, which tasked the player with maneuvering a floating ball though different openings. The height of the ball, controlled by the speed of the blower motor in the base of the unit, was controlled by the output of the NeuroSky headset. Trying to get two actionable data points out of the hardware was asking a bit much, so moving the ball left and right must be done by hand with a knob.

But while the Mindflex was first, the better known application for NeuroSky’s hardware in the entertainment space is certainly the Star Wars Jedi Force Trainer released by Uncle Milton a few months later. Fundimentally, the game worked the same way as the Mindflex, with the user again tasked with controlling the speed of a blower motor that would raise and lower a ball.

But this time, the obstacles were gone, as was the need for a physical control. It was a simpler game in all respects. Even the ball was constrained in a clear plastic tube, rather than being held in place by the Coandă effect as in the Mindflex. In theory, this made for a less distracting experience, allowing the user to more fully focus on trying to control the height of the ball with their mental state.

But the real hook, of course, was Star Wars. Uncle Milton cleverly wrapped the whole experience around the lore from the films, putting the player in the role of a young Jedi Padawan that’s using the Force Trainer to develop their telekinetic abilities. As the player attempted to accurately control the movement of the ball, voice clips of Yoda would play to encourage them to concentrate harder and focus their minds on the task at hand. Even the ball itself was modeled after the floating “Training Remote” that Luke uses to practice his lightsaber skills in the original film.

The Force Trainer enjoyed enough commercial success that Uncle Milton produced the Force Trainer II in 2015. This version used a newer NeuroSky headset which featured Bluetooth capability, and paired it with an application running on a user-supplied Android or Apple tablet. The tablet was inserted into a base unit which was able to display “holograms” using the classic Pepper’s Ghost illusion. Rather than simply moving a ball up and down, the young Jedi in training would have to focus their thoughts to virtually lift a 3D model of an X-Wing out of the muck or knock over groups of battle droids.

Unfortunately, Force Trainer II didn’t end up being as successful as its predecessor, and was discontinued a few years later. Even though the core technology was the same as in 2009, the reviews I can still find online for this version of the game are scathing. It seems like most of the technical problems came from the fact that users had to connect the headset to their own device, which introduced all manner of compatibility issues. Others claimed that the game doesn’t actually read the player’s mental state at all, and that the challenges can be beaten even if you don’t wear the headset.

Headset Hacking

The headsets for both the Mindflex and the original Force Trainer use the same core hardware, and NeuroSky even released their own “developer version” of the headset not long after the games hit the market which could connect to the computer and offered a free SDK.

Over the years, there have been hacks to use the cheaper Mindflex and Force Trainer headsets in place of NeuroSky’s developer version, some of which have graced these very pages. But somehow we missed what seems to be the best source of information: How to Hack Toy EEGs. This page not only features a teardown of the Mindflex headset, but shows how it can be interfaced with the Arduino so brainwave data can be read and processed on the computer.

I haven’t gone too far down this particular rabbit hole, but I did connect the headset up to my trusty Bus Pirate 5 and could indeed see it spewing out serial data. Paired with a modern wireless microcontroller, the Mindflex could still be an interesting device for BCI experimentation all these years later. Though if you can pick up the Bluetooth Force Trainer II headset for cheap on eBay, it sounds like it would save you the trouble of having to hack it yourself.

My Mind to Your Mind

So the big question: does the Mindflex, and by extension NeuroSky’s 2009-era BCI technology, actually work?

Before writing this article, I spent the better part of an hour wearing the Mindflex headset and trying to control the LEDs on the front of the device that are supposed to indicate your focus level. I can confidently say that it’s doing something, but it’s hard to say what. I found that getting the focus indicator to drop down to zero was relatively easy (story of my life) and nearly 100% repeatable, but getting it to go in the other direction was not as consistent. Sometimes I could make the top LEDs blink on and off several times in a row, but then seconds later I would lose it and struggle to light up even half of them.

Some critics have said that the NeuroSky is really just detecting muscle movement in the face — picking up not the wearer’s focus level so much as a twitch of the eye or a furrowed brow which makes it seem like the device is responding to mental effort. For what it’s worth, the manual specifically says to try and keep your face as still as possible, and I couldn’t seem to influence the focus indicator by blinking or making different facial expressions. Although if it actually was just detecting the movement of facial muscles, that would still be a neat trick that offered plenty of potential applications.

I also think that a lot of the bad experiences people have reported with the technology is probably rooted in their own unrealistic expectations. If you tell a child that a toy can read their mind and that they can move an object just by thinking about it, they’re going to take that literally. So when they put on the headset and the game doesn’t respond to their mental image of the ball moving or the LEDs lighting up, it’s only natural they would get frustrated.

So what about the claims that the Force Trainer II could be played without even wearing the headset? If I had to guess, I would say that if there’s any fakery going on, it’s in the game itself and not the actual NeuroSky hardware. Perhaps somebody was worried the experience would be too frustrating for kids, and goosed the numbers so the game could be beaten no matter what.

As for NeuroSky, they’re still making BCI headsets and offer a free SDK for them. You can buy their MindWave Mobile 2 on Amazon right now for $130, though the reviews aren’t exactly stellar. They continue to offer a single chip EEG sensor (datasheet, PDF) that you can integrate into your projects as well, the daughterboard for which looks remarkably similar to what’s in the Mindflex headset. Despite the shaky response to the devices that have hit the market so far, it seems that NeuroSky hasn’t given up on the dream of bringing affordable brain-computer interfaces to the masses.

Founded in 2024, this NovaUCD-based start-up uses science to develop an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional concrete using waste materials.

Concrete is one of the most popularly used and reliable construction materials in the world, with use dating back to Ancient Greece and Rome.

But while the material forms a considerable portion of the modern world’s infrastructure, its production – like many traditional construction materials – also has a considerable impact on the environment. In fact, it’s estimated that concrete is responsible for 4-8pc of global CO2 emissions.

One company that’s intent on providing an environmentally friendly alternative to concrete is our latest Start-up of the Week – SlateRete.

Founded in 2024, SlateRete is a NovaUCD-based start-up that has developed a solution that transforms slate waste into a sustainable and “high-performing” construction material, with an additional focus on visually appealing aesthetics.

SlateRete does this by replacing high-carbon concrete ingredients with slate waste, which it claims reduces CO2 emissions by more than 40pc, eliminates the need for pigments and minimises virgin material extraction.

The start-up is targeting three areas of innovation with its product: environmental impact, materials science and design.

“Unlike conventional concrete, which relies on high-carbon-footprint materials like cement, sand, limestone and granite, SlateRete repurposes slate waste, reducing environmental impact while maintaining structural integrity,” says Hamed Panahiazar, who co-founded the start-up with his brother Sadegh.

“The ultimate goal of SlateRete is to transform the global construction materials industry by replacing environmentally damaging concrete products with a sustainable, waste-made, high-value alternative that performs just as well – if not better – than traditional options.”

The product

Panahiazar, a senior project manager in the construction industry with more than 10 years of experience, tells SiliconRepublic.com that the start-up is focused on assisting the construction industry in adopting greener solutions by providing an “alternative that meets regulatory demands and market needs without compromising performance or cost”.

According to Panahiazar, SlateRete uses a patent-pending technology to replace the main components of traditional concrete, cement, sand, and quarried aggregates, with 75pc or more slate waste, “significantly reducing the product’s carbon footprint and environmental impact”.

The SlateRete mix, he explains, is carefully engineered through extensive laboratory research conducted at University College Dublin (UCD).

“The process involves substituting concrete ingredients with certain mix of slate waste, optimising particle gradation and water absorption to maintain workability and strength,” he says. “The mix design also integrates ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) to reduce cement content, improve resistance to chemical attack and enhance long-term durability.

“During the initial development, multiple investigations were performed to optimise strength, durability and colour stability,” he adds. “Tests confirmed that SlateRete achieves high compressive strength (strength class C25/30) and exceptional freeze–thaw resistance, comparable or superior to standard concrete.”

Panahiazar also claims that the SlateRete mix bypasses the coloration processes used in concrete production.

“Unlike conventional concrete, which relies on chemical additives for coloration and performance, SlateRete’s colours (blue, green, grey, ochre, purple and black) arise naturally from the mineral composition of slate,” he says. “This eliminates the use of synthetic dyes and additives that typically fade and add environmental burden.”

How it’s going

The main challenge SlateRete has experienced so far, according to Panahiazar, has been balancing technical validation with strategic fundraising and market readiness.

“Developing a deep-tech, materials-based innovation requires significant certification, testing and regulatory alignment, all while positioning the brand for investment,” he says. “In addition, attracting investors who understand the long-term potential of sustainable construction, beyond short-term returns, has required precise communication of both our science and our business model.

“However, these challenges have strengthened our strategic discipline, clarified our value proposition, and ensured that we target investors and partners aligned with our long-term vision of global sustainability and profitability.”

Panahiazar says SlateRete’s product has undergone more than 20 mix trials and extensive laboratory characterisation at UCD, leading to a validated prototype.

“Further development includes life cycle analysis, environmental product declarations and certification testing for applications such as paving, cladding, flooring and furniture.”

Currently, the start-up is in a “focused phase” of business development and investor engagement, according to Panahiazar.

“Following successful technical validation at UCD, our efforts are concentrated on preparing investment materials, refining our pitch and evaluating strategic partnerships,” he says, adding that the company is in discussion with potential investors for pre-seed, seed and first funding rounds.

“Parallel to this, we are building relationships in both Europe and the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council], where strong construction growth aligns with our sustainable materials offering. The response from industry stakeholders has been encouraging, reaffirming the market’s appetite for low-carbon and aesthetically superior alternatives to concrete.”

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

from the fake-investigations,-real-harm dept

Here we go again.

The Trump FTC has threatened Apple and CEO Tim Cook with a fake investigation claiming that Apple News doesn’t do a good enough job coddling right wing, Trump-friendly ideology.

The announcement and associated letter pretends that Apple is violating Section 5 of the FTC Act (which “prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices”) because it’s not giving right wing propaganda outlets the same visibility as other media in the Apple News feed (which the letter falsely claims are “left wing”):

“Recently, there have been reports that Apple News has systematically promoted news
articles from left-wing news outlets and suppressed news articles from more conservative
publications. Indeed, multiple studies have found that in recent months Apple News has chosen not to feature a single article from an American conservative-leaning news source, while simultaneously promoting hundreds of articles from liberal publications.”

This is all gibberish and bullshit. Their primary evidence is a shitty article from Rupert Murdoch’s right wing rag The New York Post, which in turn leans on a laughable study by the right wing Media Research Center. That “study” looked at a small sample size of 620 articles promoted by Apple News, randomly and arbitrarily declared 440 of them as having a “liberal bias,” and then concluded Apple was up to no good.

Among the outlets derided as “liberal” sits papers like the Washington Post, which has been tripping over itself to appease Trump and become, very obviously, more right wing and corporatist than ever under its owner Jeff Bezos, who recently vastly overpaid Donald Trump’s wife to make a “documentary” about her.

The FTC’s fake investigation obviously violates the First Amendment. Even if it were true that Apple was biased in what sources it had in Apple News (which the evidence doesn’t actually support), that’s… still legal, based on Apple’s First Amendment rights. If the Biden FTC had gone after Fox News for “anti-liberal bias” everyone (including many Democrats) would call out the obvious First Amendment problem. But even ignoring the First Amendment problems of all this, claiming that this is covered by Section 5 is laughable. I’ve watched for years as the FTC has struggled to legally defend genuine investigations into obvious corporate instances of very clear fraud and still come out on the losing end due to the murky construction of the law.

This inquiry has no legal legs to stand on.

I suspect FTC boss Andrew Ferguson is leaving soon and wanted an opportunity to put his name in lights across the right wing propaganda echoplex as somebody who is “doing something to combat the wokes” with a phony investigation, much like the FCC’s Brendan Carr does. It’s likely this is mostly being driven by partisan ambition.

There doesn’t need to be any legally supporting evidence (or hell even an actual investigation), the point is to have the growing parade of right-wing friendly media make it appear as if key MAGA zealots are doing useful things in service of the cause. And to threaten companies with costly and pointless headaches if they don’t pathetically bend the knee to Trumpism (which Cook has been very good at so far).

So while the “investigation” may be completely bogus, the threat of it still has a dangerous impact on free expression in a country staring down the barrel of authoritarianism. Somewhere, Tim Cook is shopping around for another shiny bauble to throw at the feet of our mad, idiot king.

Here’s where I’ll mention that if you ask an actual, objective media scholar here on planet Earth, they’ll be quick to inform you that U.S. media and journalism pretty consistently has a center-right, corporatist bias.

As the ad-driven U.S. media consolidates under corporate control, it largely functions less and less as a venue for real journalism and informed democratic consensus, and more as either an infotainment distraction mechanism to keep the plebs busy, or as a purveyor of corporate-friendly agitprop that coddles the narratives surrounding unchecked wealth accumulation by the extraction class.

From the Washington Post to CBS, from Twitter to TikTok, to consolidation among local right wing broadcasters, the U.S. right wing is very clearly buying up U.S. media in the pursuit of the same sort of autocratic state television we’ve seen arise in countries like Russia and Hungary.

This effort is propped up by an endless barrage of claims that the already corporatist, center-right U.S. press is secretly left wing, and that the only solution is to shift the editorial Overton window even further to the right. These folks genuinely will not be satisfied until the entirety of U.S. media resembles the sort of fawning, mindless agitprop we see in countries like North Korea.

This is not hyperbole. They’re building it right in front of your noses. It’s yet to be seen if fans of free speech, democratic norms, and objective reality can muster any sort of useful resistance.

Filed Under: andrew ferguson, apple, bias, first amendment, free speech, ftc, journalism, media, propaganda, section 5, tim cook

Companies: apple

A wedding was taking place in a sunlit hall deep in the heart of Turkey, complete with laughing, music, and dancing, as well as family gathering as close as possible. Guests lined up as expected, each eager to give the happy couple something unique. Envelopes containing cash and gold pieces were passed from hand to hand as usual, but one of the attendees did something unexpected.

He created a necklace of sorts with an MSI Suprim GeForce RTX 5090, one of the latest high-end GPUs, wrapped in white and fastened with red ribbons. The groom then wore the box around his neck like a nice chain. The card, one of the most desirable and astonishing high-performance graphics cards available, hung there proudly as the audience erupted in cheers and laughing.

Shortly after, the same guest approached the bride, holding a set of four DDR5 memory sticks. They were strung together with red ribbons, creating a makeshift necklace that she could easily wear. As the lights caught them, the memory modules appeared to be a string of high-speed memory, which was fairly cool given the theme of the day.

Another guest chipped in, adding an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K unlocked processor. The line made people laugh because it was sort of accurate, since the GPU, CPU, and RAM could definitely anchor a very serious PC build, even if they were missing a few components like a case, motherboard, and power supply.

Turkish weddings have always been a site where guests shower the happy couple with valuable presents to help them get started. Gold coins, cash, and the standard sorts of jewelry have all fulfilled that role for a long time, but PC components have recently increased in value so rapidly that they have begun to challenge some of the old classics in terms of value. High-capacity DDR5 and high-end GPUs have found themselves in that all-too-rare position where demand and availability intersect, making them not only logical but also pretty darn great presents.
[Source]

The first developer beta of iOS 26.4 is rolling out, and with it, Apple is flipping a major security switch for buyers. A security feature that was previously optional is now enabled by default for everyone, making it harder for thieves to change your iPhone’s critical settings.

We’re talking about Stolen Device Protection (first released with iOS 17.3), the feature that is designed to protect your Apple ID, saved passwords, payment methods, and other sensitive information, even if someone knows your iPhone’s passcode.

Changing critical security settings requires more than just a passcode

The feature asks for more credentials than your iPhone’s passcode (such as Face ID or Touch ID) for actions like viewing or using passwords or passkeys saved in iCloud, viewing an existing Apple card or applying for a new one, turning off the Lost Mode, and erasing all the content and settings.

Further, the feature also delays changing critical security settings, such as the Apple ID password, adding or removing trusted devices, changing the iPhone’s passcode, and adding/removing Face ID or Touch ID, for an hour.

It also requires biometric authentication, followed by a one-hour security delay and a second biometric confirmation before changes can be made.

Why this matters

Basically, by enabling Stolen Device Protection in iOS 26.4, Apple is making it harder for bad actors to exploit the critical information stored on your phone or to reset it and sell it for quick cash.

In other words, your iPhone will be more paranoid than usual, even when you’re using it, but it is better to have the feature and not need it than to need it and realize that you didn’t turn it on (which is the entire point of making it a non-optional feature).

Elsewhere, the iOS 26.4 developer beta also includes encrypted RCS messaging support, native video support in Apple Podcasts, and a new Playlist Playground feature in Apple Music. A full public release of iOS 26.4 is expected this spring.