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We Are Social and Mentalista introduce thought-powered football to Cannes

Moving objects using only the power of your mind is not just the stuff of science fiction. With the help of AI, we can all have the ability to control the objects around us with our thoughts, like sci fi heroes such as Yoda or Eleven in Stranger Things. We Are Social and the AI start-up Mentalista hosted the first ever thought-powered football match at the Cannes Lions festival and revealed the technology behind it in their session on Wednesday, called 'Beyond Voice: Introducing Thought-Powered AI'. Mentalista researches and develops communication interfaces between the brain and the environment. In the session, Mentalista founder Bastien Didier told the audience how his company developed an algorithm to analyse mental images from the visual cortex in the brain. These images are then materialized using electrical impulses which, in turn, make it possible to program an action onto a connected object. "We try to catch and classify the imagination," Didier explained to the audience. "We translate the electrical current in the brain and then we can use it in an algorithm." To demonstrate how it works, Didier and We Are Social's head of innovation Stéphane Maguet invited two members of the audience to the stage to play a game