Scientists set to show how they hacked into Stephen Hawking's brain To produce the words for text or speech, British physicist Stephen Hawking currently uses an infrared sensor mounted on his eyeglasses, visible here on the left side of his face during an appearance this month in Seattle. The sensor picks up twitches from his cheek, which are translated into the desired letters or words. Hawking and neuroscientist Philip Low are experimenting with a headband-mounted system that can translate brain waves directly into text and speech, but Hawking has said that system isn't yet up to speed. After months of tweaking, researchers are finally ready to show off a high-tech headband that can translate Stephen Hawking's brain waves into speech - providing what could eventually become an easier avenue for the paralyzed British physicist to share his deep thoughts. The system, developed by San Diego-based NeuroVigil and known as iBrain, uses a head-mounted receiver the size of a matchbox to pick up different types of brain waves. iBrain employs a computer algorithm called SPEARS to analyze the brain emanations and encode them for a text-based speech reader. Philip Low, NeuroVigil's founder, chairman and CEO, is to present the latest results of his work with Hawking on July 7 at a Cambridge conference on consciousness. For decades, Hawking has been coping with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative nerve disease that has left the theoretical physicist confined to a wheelchair and unable to move even his fingers. To write or speak, he currently uses an infrared sensor system mounted on his eyeglasses: His cheek twitches are read by the sensor to control a wheelchair-mounted computer system that slowly encodes the patterns of those twitches. It can take a half-hour for Hawking to twitch out a couple of sentences in response to a question. In an abstract prepared for next month's presentation, Low and Hawking describe how they worked out their technique for the iBrain system. Hawking was told to try moving one of his hands or feet - for example, flexing his foot or scrunching his hand into a ball. The limbs didn't move, of course, but just thinking about trying to move them generated readable brain-wave patterns. "The subject's brain activity demonstrated distinct broad-spectrum pulses extending to the gamma and ultra-high gamma ranges," the researchers wrote. Such pulses were present in the absence of actual movement, and absent when the subject was not attempting motion. The abstract said Hawking's brain also buzzed with alpha brain waves when he closed his eyes, as expected. Alpha waves are associated with wakeful relaxation, and are probably familiar to anyone who's undergone biofeedback training. Gamma waves, in contrast, are associated with increased attention - and in the past have been linked to activities ranging from running to learning. The fact that Hawking's brain signals could be read reliably is a good sign, not only for one of the world's best-known scientists but for hundreds of thousands of others around the world. Low and Hawking say their work "opens the possibility to link intended movements to a library of words and convert them into speech, thus providing ALS sufferers with communication tools more dependent on the brain than on the body." The iBrain device could have other applications: It can also be used for diagnosing sleep apnea, studying autism and other brain conditions. Direct brain-to-speech communication, however, represents the highest-profile application, particularly when Stephen Hawking is involved. "We'd like to find a way to bypass his body, pretty much hack his brain," The Telegraph quoted Low as saying. The key question for Hawking is whether iBrain represents an improvement over the system he currently has. Back in April, the professor told The New York Times that the project hadn't quite reached that point. "At the moment I think my cheek switch is faster [than a brain-computer interface] ... but should the position change I will try Philip Low's system," he wrote in an email sent by an assistant. Next month, we may find out how much the position is changing. More about Stephen Hawking: