The Halo Headband Will Make You Smarter by Shocking Your Brain

As apposed to other Halos that wipe out all sentient life.
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Currently, there is no excuse for using the tired phrase “put on your thinking cap,” but the Halo headband is trying to change that. The small device sits on your skull and zaps your brain with electricity to increase your focus, which probably comes in handy when you’re trying not to think about the headband you’re wearing zapping your brain.

The Halo is in development by the team at Halo Neuroscience, and I don’t know if it’s the video game-sounding name or the shocking people’s brains for science, but I feel like they’re about a portal gun and evil robot away from their own enrichment center. Either way, they’ve secured funding from big time tech investor Marc Andreessen to the tune of $1.5 million, so you might actually get to try the Halo for yourself one day.

Despite how it sounds, they’re confident that the Halo, which is based on years of research and other product approvals, is perfectly safe. You don’t even need any activation indexes or sacred icons to use it! The first prototypes were actually built with off-the-shelf parts from Radioshack and standard batteries.

And, like all mad scientists, they tested the original devices on themselves. Halo co-founder Amol Sarva recounted an incident where an early model accidentally sent a pulse directly into his optic nerve to The Verge:

I turned it on and there was this bright flash and then I was basically blind. Luckily it cleared up after a few minutes. We’re much better informed now about which parts of the brain we need to stimulate.

So, yeah. Totally safe and everything. No worries.

They’re expected to begin clinical trials with the device this summer. Although, once they get it working well enough, they should be able to iron out the bugs pretty quickly, right? I mean, if it works and everything, it’d be pretty embarrassing if it didn’t even make them smart enough to build a safer one.

(via The Verge, image via Back to the Future)

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Dan Van Winkle
Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.