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Sure, why not let an airplane seat electrify my brain?

A simple line drawing of a person in an airplane seat with a camera pointed at their face and an electrode device around their head.
“Brain stimulation system to provide a sense of wellbeing.” | Embraer

Commercial air travel is a largely terrible experience, and aviation companies patent a lot of ways to make it either slightly less miserable or an even more dystopian hell. Where does reading passengers’ emotions to offer them transcranial stimulation therapy fall? I’ll leave that up to you.

Brazilian aerospace manufacturer Embraer filed a patent application for a “brain stimulation system to provide a sense of wellbeing” back in 2016, and it was granted last year. But I only discovered it thanks to a more recent Mastodon post by attorney Jeff Steck, and I am fascinated. Embraer’s reasonable starting premise is that lots of people become anxious on long car, train, and airplane rides, “turning a short trip into a long one.” From there,…

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