Engineers from China Electronics Corporation and Tianjin University have created a chip known as the Brain Talker, with the device said to be capable of reading human brainwave activity and efficiently translating it to enable users to control a computer.

The technology, known as a 'brain-computer interface', or BCI, has been theorised for many decades, and has featured prominently in science fiction and techno-thriller books and films such as Neuromancer, Firefox, Ghost in the Shell, and Robocop.

Now, Chinese engineers and academics have apparently taken the next step and actually created a working BCI device, with the Brain Talker debuting at the Third Annual World Intelligence Congress in Tianjin last month.

Ming Dong, director of Tianjin University's Academy of Medical Engineering & Translational Medicine, explained that the Brain Talker chip works by identifying minor nerve information generated by the cerebral cortex, and decoding this information to enable communication between a user's brain and a computer.