Sure, Siri's useful — but wouldn't it be better if your iPhone 4S could just read your mind? That's what the people behind Project Black Mirror believe, and they've actually made it a reality. By hooking an iPhone 4S up to an elaborate Arduino / MacBook Pro control setup, these hackers have placed calls simply by activating Siri with the home button and thinking about who they want to call.

The setup starts with a user hooked up to ECG pads, which capture analog brain waves that are fed into the board hooked up to the iPhone 4S. This board has a program that was trained to recognize Siri commands (like call, reminder, and so forth) from the ECG pads and sends them to a voice synthesizer chip. Here's the trick: Siri's not being controlled by your mind but by the voice commands created by the synthesizer. Those commands are fed to Siri via the iPhone's microphone jack, and Siri then places your call.

The system certainly makes for a great demo video, but it's a long way from being practical. However, Project Black Mirror's not stopping here: they want to get it polished and to the masses via a Kickstarter campaign. We'll see what these guys manage to come up with if they can get a little funding.

Update: Since this story broke, there's been numerous claims that these videos are nothing more than a a hoax. We've posted more details on the mounting evidence against Project Black Mirror here.