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NUOS and NUOS EXTREME share overall the same multimodal foundation yet there are several differences in terms of how they operate and the type of patients that they can assist with.  Specifically, NUOS operates primarily with specific algorithms which are designed to process raw neuroligical data whereas NUOS EXTREME operates directly with the raw neurological data itself.

For the vast majority of patients, NUOS will work perfectly fine.  However, if you are entering into the mid- to late stages of a neurological disease such as ALS or you are the victim of a complex stroke or trauma, NUOS EXTREME will be a better match for you.  Typically, critical cases in ICU, Complex Care and Palliative Medicine will require NUOS EXTREME.

Early on, our team realized that Eye Gaze systems had several major limitations and were prone to becoming unreliable in certain conditions and as patients progressed in their pathophysiologies.

From weaknesses in muscular eye control to micro-saccading, from challenges with internal lighting conditions to operational failure outdoors, from endless calibrations and re-calibrations to complex technical management, from poor recognition of certain eye colours to advanced ptosis all the way to blindness, the core design behind these systems is simply unable to handle a multitude of important parameters due to their reliance on their external cameras.

Although non-invasive, NUOS and NUOS EXTREME handle these challenges with a completely different logic by looking internally instead of externally.  By processing the tiny signals that the frontal part of the human head emits, NURO was able to deliver an amazingly reliable and stable architecture to do what seemed impossible by many and completely bypass the limitations of Eye Gaze systems.

Absolutely NOT.

Although important advances have been made in neurosurgery, there are many unknowns in terms of infiltrating the brain reliably, safely and over an extended period of time.  The human physiology, especially in the brain, will have a tendency to reject foreign objects over time and we consider this to be too much of a risk for our customers.  Additionally, we have first-hand experience with loved ones dying from brain surgeries and this is fundamentally, philosophically and ethically, a route that our team is not interested in at this particular point in time.

Training can be defined as a. Training for the User by an instructor to be able to operate a system and b. Training of the System by the User for the system to operate properly.

Our technology has been designed from scratch with the user in mind first.  Our extensive experience in advanced technologies and software applications has allowed us to design user interfaces that are both intuitive and easy-to-use even for novices or individuals with minimal capabilities.  In most cases, patients can operate our solutions within minutes.  The key is defining what is the most appropriate neurological signal acquisition that will work for them and this can be done usually very quickly.

In terms of Training of the System itself by the User for the system to operate properly, NUOS and NUOS EXTREME are training-less.  Our platform is capable of immediately sensing. monitoring and processing multimodally all of the neurologicals signals on a per individual basis instantly and no training is required.

Similarly to the previous question about Training, our technology requires no calibration to extremely limited calibration (if any, usually once or extremely rarely which is a significant difference from any other system).  In the vast majority of cases, the platform will work immediately yet it is still possible to precisely fine-tune NUOS and NUOS EXTREME for optimal results depending on the state of each patient.

For individuals with complex neurodegenerative diseases, we have seen at times one set of neurological signals working for several months and then, as the degeneration unfortunately progressed, we switched to another set of neurological signals. In complex cases, sometimes a patient will be able to use one set of signals in the morning and another set later in the day.

The good news is that NUOS and NUOS EXTREME are natively architected as multimodal technologies.  This means that switching signal processing is literally instantaneous so you can keep on utilizing the platform over time even if the body is not providing the same capabilities as you progress or even go on with your day.

This is particularly important in either direction (such as in cases of actual physiological degeneration (ALS being a prime example) or when a patient actually improves over time (such as in cases of Ischemic Stroke with Akinetic Mutism or Brain Stem Stroke for instance).

Either way, NUOS and NUOS EXTREME can operate "as is" for most people or be extremely precisely fine-tuned and adjusted by a caregiver if or when required.

NUOS and NUOS EXTREME are non-invasive and pain-free passive technologies.

Our hardware is positioned on the surface of the forehead, is ultra-light and comfortable in any position.   Nothing "writes" to the brain nor emits any type of electrical stimulation into the brain.  NUOS and NUOS EXTREME simply listen (from the outside) to the tiny neurological signals that are generated inside of the human head with extremely sensitive sensors and classify these signals in such a way that they can be used for communication and control of an external computer system.

NUOS and NUOS EXTREME can be used instantly without any painful surgery or risk for painful infections or removal of internally-placed devices and the like.  Operationally speaking, they are not painful nor do they generate any kind of discernible aching to any part of the human body neither quickly or over time.

"Hacking your Brain" would involve having the ability to "write" to the brain and this is not something NURO is doing at this time.

We consider modifying the human brain physiology as a dangerous exercise (despite potential rewards) and we are still a long way away from truly knowing how safe "writing to the brain" is medically speaking.

From an Artificial Intelligence perspective, some have argued that Humans ought to become one with AI to be able to control it.  The question is what happens when AI is then able to interact and possibly control that other AI which is now embedded into those Humans ?  For now, we believe that AI can ethically help Humanity but it does not mean that it should be embedded within a human brain.

Our work has been tested and implemented on a wide variety of human beings, from healthy individuals to some who are in extremely advanced states of illnesses and neurodegeneration.  Patients who were in a coma state have used NUOS post-coma successfully.  Individuals who have had brain-stem strokes and were fully locked-in used NUOS successfully right in Critical Care all the way to Home-based Care.  Patients who were past their life expectancy in late Stage VI ALS have used NUOS successfully.  Individuals with advanced neurological degenerations with pstosis or no vision at all used NUOS successfully.  So as far as we know today, individuals with total akinetic mutism -- regardless as to how they got there -- can use our technologies as long as they have a cognitive brain -- even if the rest of their bodies have unfortunately deteriorated to a very drastic state.

We will continue to update all on our work as we go deeper into our mission to help humanity in these states and beyond.

Our patient-centric products listen to and continuously process tiny electrical signals from the Pre-Frontal Cortex.  These are technically numbers, numerical values which are encrypted at the source and remain encrypted throughout our entire computing infrastructure.  IF a hacker would ever be able to interrupt the flow of the data packets, the information that would be visible -- if ever able to be decrypted -- would be absolutely meaningless numbers.  None of them would be "writable" back to the brain and none of them would be representing any data that would make any sense to the perpetrator.  Further, our technology works with Google-based highly-secured infrastructure and any hacker would have to first break into Google's security layers before getting into ours and then these meaningless sets of encrypted numbers.

Our products have literally gone through several hundreds of versionings and iterations over 6 years before our first commercial release and are continously being reviewed for more features based on our community of registered users.  In summary, we have contemplated many different paths to get to where we are today and as such have created an architecture which is natively extremely flexible and able to be updated very quickly.  With that capability in mind, we work very closely with our clients, constantly appraise how our systems are working for them and provide updates and upgrades many times a year to implement new requests and more.  Fundamentally, once you are a NURO client, you can expect us to be reachable, carefully reviewing all suggestions coming our way and delivering further value for all parties involved.

Our hardware products are warranted for one year when used as per the instructions in our official User's Manuals.  If any issue arises from normal functioning, we will replace any hardware (tablets, sensors, etc) within a 30-day window at no charge, including all costs for transportation / shipping from you to us with the defective item and from us back to you with the replacement item.

Our software products are warranted for one year when used as per the instructions in our official User's Manuals.  If any issue arises, we will replace such software or fix such software issue via an applicable update once we have been able to reproduce the issue in our labs.

All of our products can be returned within a 30-day window from the date of delivery and are subject to a 30% restocking fee for all products (hardware and software).   This restocking fee is mandatory to avoid abuse of our terms and conditions and to cover direct costs associated with implementations, shipping costs, professional time incurred by our staff and potential use or misuse / damages to our equipment which will not be resold as new equipment to other users for both ethical and sanitary reasons.

As of November 2021, a loaner program will be made available to clinicians and patients located in regulatory-cleared jurisdictions interested in testing our products prior to purchase.  More information is available in this section of our website.

When you start a mission to help mankind, you have to admire anyone willing to take on the challenge.  What Elon Musk and his team have achieved so far is quite remarkable.  That said, penetrating the human brain, placing and reliably working with foreign materials in it for an extended duration is a very challenging task.

At NURO, we believe and have already demonstrated that piercing the human brain and leaving electrodes inside of it is simply not necessary if you want to provide communication and computing to an incapacitated individual.  Now it is possible that other developments will become useful from work in Invasive Neurotechnology and we are certainly keen to see and further review how this particular approach might possibly help at some point in time in the future.

For now, NURO has adopted a direction with no animal use of any kind, no surgery on animals nor humans and we are ultimately comfortable with our safer approach both technically and philosophically.