New York, NY Friday, March 11, 2005 -

Today, Computing Reviews released "Brain Machine Interfaces: Mind over Matter" in its new Hot Topics section. This is the second essay to be published in Hot Topics, and marks Computing Reviews' expansion from publishing reviews of articles and books to creating an additional framework for reviewing seminal topics.

Hot Topics are essays that focus on emergent areas of computer science, and are updated on a regular basis. Intended to track the latest developments and anticipate future discoveries, the format of Hot Topics mirrors the fast-changing world of computer science. The essays are written by leaders in their fields, and include related resources, such as Web pages, articles, books, and conferences. Utilizing the flexibility of online publishing, Hot Topics allow readers to link to further information and easily expand their exploration. In addition, Computing Reviews is the only publisher to update both essays and related resources once they have been released, permitting the flow of new information into a Hot Topic.

The "Brain Machine Interfaces" Hot Topic looks at the emerging possibilities of connecting our brains to the physical world via a direct digital interface. While in the healthy human, the brain and body are in communication and coordinated, the loss of sensing abilities (for example, deafness) or motor abilities (for example, paralysis) necessitates the creation of a new channel that either sends messages from the brain to an engineered device, or supplies the brain with needed sensory information. "Professor Jose C. Principe of the University of Florida sets out the essential elements and prospects for further development in the fascinating arena of brain machine interfaces," says Carol Hutchins, Editor-in-Chief of Computing Reviews. "We see that this is a truly multi-disciplinary research field, in which contributions from neuroscience, engineering, and computer science are all bringing different areas of expertise together. The overall effort portends positive results, which only a few years ago were not feasible."

To read "Brain Machine Interfaces," go to http://www.reviews.com and click on Hot Topics in the top navigational bar.

Developed by Reviews.com and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Computing Reviews is an online resource for reviews of computing literature, and is available for subscription at www.reviews.com.

About Reviews.com:
Founded in 1999, Reviews.com is a New York-based publisher of reviews focusing on academic and professional literature. Its first titles are community-based services that provide reviews of articles and books in specific academic disciplines. For more information, visit http://www.reviews.com

About the ACM:
Founded in 1947, ACM is a major force in advancing the skills of information technology professionals and students worldwide. Today, our 75,000 members and the public turn to ACM for the industry's leading Portal to Computing Literature (http://portal.acm.org/), authoritative publications and pioneering conferences, providing leadership for the 21st century. For information about ACM, visit http://www.acm.org