It's creepy and it's kooky, mysterious and spooky, it's all together ooky...

If this technology developed by researchers at the University of Tokyo ever ends up as a commercial product, then you could have the terrifying experience of your hand being possessed, moving itself without any commands from your own brain. You would, for all intents and purposes, become Bruce Campbell’s Ashley ‘Ash’ J. Williams in The Evil Dead.

The experimental device is actually called the PossessedHand, and controls your digits by shooting small electric currents into your wrist via electrodes strapped to your forearm. The PossessedHand runs on an Arduino micro-controller, and can auto calibrate itself to make sure it is twitching the corrects fingers and muscles inside your hand.

The theory is that the PossessedHand could be used to teach people to play musical instruments by training their fingers to move correctly. I’m not sure that this simple, mindless repetition would actually work without involving the brain. After all, “muscle memory” doesn’t actually reside in the muscles.

It could, however, have medical benefits, teaching patients to use their hands again after strokes or accidents, and it would make a great gag gift to freak people out at parties.

Just make sure that the controls don’t get into the wrong hands (pun intended). Otherwise you, like Ash, could end the being strangled by your own hand.

PossessedHand: Techniques for controlling human hands using electrical muscles stimuli [Reikimoto Lab via PhysOrg]

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