A California tech millionaire is weeks away from selling helmets that can read your mind


"Over the next few weeks, a company called Kernel will begin sending dozens of customers across the U.S. a $50,000 helmet that can, crudely speaking, read their mind," Ashlee Vance writes at Bloomberg Businessweek. The company's founder, Bryan Johnson, spent more than five years and $55 million of his own fortune — Johnson started the electronic payment system Braintree and bought Venmo before selling both to Ebay for $800 million — to develop his helmets.
Johnson hopes they will be inexpensive enough by 2030 that regular people can buy them, like smartwatches and other wearable tech, but the first batch will go to research institutions like Harvard Medical School, the University of Texas, and Cybin Inc, a startup developing mental health treatments based on psychedelics. Christof Koch, the chief scientist at Seattle's Allen Institute for Brain Science calls Kernel's helmets "revolutionary," Vance writes, and Johnson plans to prove him right.
Kernel has created two helmets, the Flux and the Flow, that use an array of sensors and lasers to study a brain's electromagnetic activity and blood oxygenation levels, respectively. The idea was to shrink the giant brain-scanning devices in hospitals down to wearable size, and researchers are excited to measure the brain's activity as subjects move about and perform tasks. They hope to study brain aging, Alzheimer's, concussions, strokes, "and the mechanics behind previously metaphysical experiences such as meditation and psychedelic trips," Vance writes. Johnson is thinking even bigger.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"To make progress on all the fronts that we need to as a society, we have to bring the brain online," Johnson says. "We are the first generation in the history of Homo sapiens who could look out over our lifetimes and imagine evolving into an entirely novel form of conscious existence," he adds. "The things I am doing can create a bridge for humans to use where our technology will become part of our self." Read more about the Kernel helmets and their unusual progenitor at Bloomberg Businessweek.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
'The way AI is discussed makes it seem like this is a necessary outcome'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Measles cases surge to 33-year high
Speed Read The infection was declared eliminated from the US in 2000 but has seen a resurgence amid vaccine hesitancy
-
The New York Times plays defense after publishing leaked Mamdani college application details
IN THE SPOTLIGHT The decision to publish details of Zohran Mamdani's Columbia University application has reignited simmering questions about sourcing and editorial guidelines
-
Bacteria can turn plastic waste into a painkiller
Under the radar The process could be a solution to plastic pollution
-
Scientists want to regrow human limbs. Salamanders could lead the way.
Under the radar Humans may already have the genetic mechanism necessary
-
New York plans first nuclear plant in 36 years
Speed Read The plant, to be constructed somewhere in upstate New York, will produce enough energy to power a million homes
-
Dehorning rhinos sharply cuts poaching, study finds
Speed Read The painless procedure may be an effective way to reduce the widespread poaching of rhinoceroses
-
Is the world losing scientific innovation?
Today's big question New research seems to be less exciting
-
Breakthrough gene-editing treatment saves baby
speed read KJ Muldoon was healed from a rare genetic condition
-
Sea lion proves animals can keep a beat
speed read A sea lion named Ronan beat a group of college students in a rhythmic dance-off, says new study
-
Humans heal much slower than other mammals
Speed Read Slower healing may have been an evolutionary trade-off when we shed fur for sweat glands