WEEK SEVEN: NOT AN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN EXCERCISE?

I'm having some issues in getting my head around how to prevent my concept from becoming

1. Industrial design
2. Virtual reality

So I decided to simplify the problem and reach the source of what I was trying to create...

The core issue in this sense is that there are people who cannot communicate with others, due to medical issues including locked-in syndrome, stroke, degenerative dieseases and paralysis.  Often these people are bedridden, or use crude technologies such as straws to control devices to help them communicate and interact with the outside world. They are reliant on carers to perform daily functions for them- everything that we take for granted, they cannot do for themselves.  Their world is often the four walls of the room they live in, or, if they are lucky, the path of a motorised wheelchair.

In response to this, I conducted further research on brain-scanning technologies, and found that the most effective use of these technologies occurs when the subject is in a relaxed, meditative state without external interruptions, and the scanning device is implanted directly- all of which are possible with these patients.

There are, however, current issues with the technologies- each person's brain and thinking patterns are different, and these change within the same person randomly.  At present, the computer programs which read the output of these scans are not developed to the point where they are able to adequately understand these patterns, nor are they dynamic enough to change with them as necessary. 

My virtual solution, at this point, is then to create a virtual interface which could translate the thoughts of those who are "locked-in".  This system would have various uses, such as

• Allowing users to communicate by typing (or perhaps even speaking) their thoughts
• Projection of images from inside the users mind
• Allowing users to access the internet and other virtual media
• The control of third party devices using ones mind- from air conditioning, windows and curtains for comfort, to cameras for viewing other parts of their homes, and perhaps even robotic devices in the future.

Ideally, the interface would include both the "upload" and "download" of information- that is, allow users to "upload" through communicating their thoughts, but also "download" information into their own minds.