First-grader crashes mother's car after 10-mile drive

A first-grader suffered minor injuries after crashing his mother's car into utility poll on Route 360 in Northumberland County. Police say the 6-year-old boy missed his school bus Monday morning and decided to drive himself to school. Investigators say the boy's mother was sleeping when he grabbed her car keys and got behind the wheel.

"He wanted to go to school, so he took his mother's car and drive 10.4 miles before he crashed," said Sheriff Churck Wilkins of the Northumberland County Sheriff's Office.

The accident happened a mile away from the boy's school. Investigators say they got a number of calls about the car swerving all over the road. Wilkins says the boy is lucky to be alive.

"He was asked by the investigator how he'd learned how to drive," Wilkins said, "and he stated that he played a lot of video games like Grand Theft Auto and monster trucks"...

--NBC12

Mind-reading toys could revolutionize play

SAN JOSE - A convincing twin of Darth Vader stalks the beige cubicles of a Silicon Valley office, complete with ominous black mask, cape and light saber.

But this is no chintzy Halloween costume. It’s a prototype, years in the making, of a toy that incorporates brain wave-reading technology.

Behind the mask is a sensor that touches the user’s forehead and reads the brain’s electrical signals, then sends them to a wireless receiver inside the saber, which lights up when the user is concentrating. The player maintains focus by channeling thoughts on any fixed mental image, or thinking specifically about keeping the light sword on. When the mind wanders, the wand goes dark.

Engineers at NeuroSky Inc. have big plans for brain wave-reading toys and video games. They say the simple Darth Vader game — a relatively crude biofeedback device cloaked in gimmicky garb — portends the coming of more sophisticated devices that could revolutionize the way people play...

--MSNBC