Get Music Inspiration From Your Subconscious

CREDIT: Laptopmag.com View full size image

AUSTIN (Laptopmag.com) — What if your smartphone could always play you music that you're in the mood to hear? That's the goal with MICO, a mind-reading headphone that connects to an iPhone and reads your brainwaves, creating a custom playlist based on your current mood. MICO recieves music inspiration from your subconcious, and the system aims to always give you music you want to hear. By reading your brainwaves directly, MICO can play the right tunes, whether you realize you want them or not.

Previously, we used a computer and even flew a helicopter with our minds, but this is the first time where a computer read our mind and delivered back exactly what we wanted to hear. Although we couldn't try on the fully-featured prototype headset, we were able to try on a Neurosky Mindwave Mobile headset that was connected to the MICO mind-reading music player app on an iPhone.

Our mood, somewhat surprisingly, was relaxed, so after a few moments of calibration, a mellow Japanese melody quickly started playing from the speakers in the booth. The app showed our mood as well as the current track playing.

The company hopes to get a product to market for less than $100, but doesn't have any sort of time frame for a consumer product. We were told, however, that the headphones included with the $100 version wouldn't be very good and price would increase as audio quality improved.

There are currently only 100 songs in the Mico library, but the team plans to add more, as well as utilize crowd sourcing to add new music and tag each track accordingly, building an almost limitless playlist built entirely with the mind.

We may see the MICO headset on the market in the next 12 months, but the company is not completely firm on this time frame. The app, which would also work with the Mindwave Mobile headset and a separate pair of headphones, may also see a release independent of the headphones, but there isn't a planned date for this release either. Until then, we'll just continue relying on our conscious mind to play our music.

This story was provided by Laptopmag.com, a sister site to LiveScience.