Remote

First step to world domination: NTT has created a remote control…for humans!

I found the experience unnerving and exhausting: I sought to step straight ahead but kept careening from side to side. Those alternating currents literally threw me off. The technology is called galvanic vestibular stimulation – essentially, electricity messes with the delicate nerves inside the ear that help maintain balance. I felt a mysterious, irresistible urge to start walking to the right whenever the researcher turned the switch to the right. I was convinced – mistakenly – that this was the only way to maintain my balance. The phenomenon is painless but dramatic. Your feet start to move before you know it. I could even remote-control myself by taking the switch into my own hands. There’s no proven-beyond-a-doubt explanation yet as to why people start veering when electricity hits their ear. But NTT researchers say they were able to make a person walk along a route in the shape of a giant pretzel using this technique. It’s a mesmerizing sensation similar to being drunk or melting into sleep under the influence of anesthesia. But it’s more definitive, as though an invisible hand were reaching inside your brain.

I for one welcome our new NTT overlords. At least we’ll finally get some decent mobile phones here…