Watch out, Google. Microsoft has applied for a patent for a method of tapping into people’s brains as they use their computers, ostensibly for the purpose of improving user interfaces. Reports New Scientist:

Not content with running your computer, Microsoft now wants to read your mind too. The company says that it is hard to properly evaluate the way people interact with computers since questioning them at the time is distracting and asking questions later may not produce reliable answers. “Human beings are often poor reporters of their own actions,” the company says. Instead, Microsoft wants to read the data straight from the user’s brain as he or she works away.

The patent application summarizes how the brain-computer feedback system would work:

In the exemplary system … a user performs a task using the mouse. The user views results of the task on the electronic display. Sensor pairs in the sensor array sense electrical signals transmitted from a user’s scalp. Electrical signals from the sensor pairs in the sensor array are transmitted to the EEG. The EEG filters and transmits the electrical signals, i.e., EEG signals, to the computing device. The analysis software on the computing device analyzes the EEG signals to determine the brain states associated with the task the user is performing.

The system does have one small bug that Microsoft hopes to fix in a future release: If you get the blue screen of death, your head explodes.