Newsletter, November ‘14
Newsletter; 7 November, 2014
20 December, 2016: This is an old piece of content as you can tell by the original date so some of it may be out of date. Feel free to get in touch to clarify anything!
Dmitry from Thought-Wired here. It’s been almost six months since our previous newsletter, and we have decided it’s a good time to send out a quick update from us. More importantly, we have some exciting news.
In this Thought-Wired newsletter:
- Muse: the brain sensing headband by InteraXon is now available for purchase in New Zealand and Australia through Thought-Wired
- Thought-Wired is one of the high-impact social enterprise startups selected for the Ākina Foundation’s Launchpad accelerator programme
- Thought-Wired NOUS is entering a new stage of trials at the Carlson School for Cerebral Palsy.
Muse: the brain sensing headband is here!
Back in May I attended the Neurogaming Conference in San Francisco. This was an incredible experience, as I was able to connect and share ideas with many people at the forefront of the brain-sensing technology industry. It is clear that the next few years are going to be huge for this sector, especially with regards to health and well-being, technology development, entertainment and, of course, accessibility for all.
One of the main highlights of this conference was meeting the InteraXon team from Canada. Over the past couple of years InteraXon have been developing a brain-sensing device called Muse.
This award-winning product, is a brain-fitness tool that detects and measures brain activity through guided focused-attention training exercises designed to help people manage stress, increase focus and enhance cognitive awareness. Muse translates brain signals into real-time feedback on a mobile device through the accompanying Calm app. We immediately bonded over our shared belief that brain-sensing technology can transform lives and our focus on improving the usability of this technology. As a result, we are delighted to announce that we have partnered with InteraXon to bring Muse to New Zealand and Australia.
Get your own Muse today to do more with your mind, and more with your life, in just 3 minutes a day.
It is worth mentioning that we have upgraded our online store recently. Now you are able to buy every brain-sensing product in our catalogue with just a few clicks!
> Visit our revamped online store to buy your own brain-sensing device!
Thought-Wired is in the Ākina Foundation’s Launchpad accelerator
At the end of September, following three months of an intensive selection process, Thought-Wired was announced as one of the eleven ventures for the first Launchpad social enterprise accelerator programme by Ākina Foundation (click for more info).
Here’s a quick look into what Launchpad is about:
Our goals for the next 5 months of the programme are to refine our business and commercialisation plan, establish effective business processes and prepare to raise the necessary capital required to launch the product to market.
Read more about the programme, our goals for it, and the impact we’re aiming to deliver:
- Our Launchpad venture page
- Article about Thought-Wired in the NZ Herald’s Element magazine (includes a short video interview with us)
- Check out the other 10 amazing ventures of the programme
> Follow our progress on our social media pages (Facebook or Twitter) and the Launchpad’s Facebook page.
We’re making good progress with NOUS development
We are super excited about the upcoming trials at the Carlson School for Cerebral Palsy in Auckland later this month. This time we will be working with a whole group of students, testing the new version of NOUS which includes an absolute ton of improvements. Stay tuned for the updates.
If you remember, our previous trials at the MacLean Centre for students with special needs, at Mt Roskill Grammar School were documented in a case study. We are excited to report that our academic peer-reviewed article based on that work was accepted and published in the renown international journal Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology last month! We are proud to not only continue building NOUS for our customers but also contribute to the advancement of research in the fields of brain-computer interfacing and assitive technology.
> Find our paper “Training to use a commercial brain-computer interface as access technology: a case study” online or get in touch if you would like a full text copy of it.
Get involved
Participate in development of NOUS
We are actively developing NOUS, our communication and interaction solution for people with severe disabilities. We periodically run user trials with the latest versions of NOUS, and welcome feedback and suggestions for improvement.
> Get in touch with me by replying to this email or register using this form to participate
Get to know and work with brain-sensing technology
If you would like to explore brain-sensing technology, see a demo and try it for yourself or even have a potential project in mind, contact me direct or,
> Request more information about how Thought-Wired can help you
Join Thought-Wired
We are always on the lookout for talent: software developers, interaction or user experience designers, game designers and developers, marketing and communications specialists.
> Get in touch with me if you’d like to get involved
Spread the word
Finally, if you’ve made it this far and found it interesting, please tell your friend or a colleague about Thought-Wired and what we do. Feel free to choose between forwarding this email on, showing them our website or directing them to our Facebook or Twitter page — any one of those things will help us and the people we’re working with.
Thank you and until next time,
Dmitry and the Thought-Wired Team
Originally published at our MailChimp newsletters archive page.
