Industry News

Israel's Wearable Devices said the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted it a continuation patent covering user authentication that combines gesture input with biopotential sensors recording neural signals. The technology could be applied to secure payments, user detection and authorization of sensitive actions, adding a biometric layer to gesture-controlled devices.

One year after its June 2025 launch, Neuro Space (脑智天地) — Shanghai's BCI industry cluster at the Hongqiao International Medical Center and China's first dedicated BCI industrial zone — has entered full operation across its 25,000 m² pilot area. As of July 2026, the cluster hosts 52 registered BCI companies and 22 startup incubators spanning flexible electrodes, BCI chips, ultrasound-based interfaces, and vision restoration. On the commercialization front, the world's first approved invasive BCI medical device, developed in Shanghai, received regulatory clearance in 2026, with its first clinical prescription issued in July. Five additional Class III devices are currently in clinical trials or under regulatory review. Shanghai accounts for nearly 60% of China's BCI financing events, totaling approximately RMB 2.117 billion. Products showcased at a recent open-day event include a non-invasive brain-controlled consumer device driven by EEG-based attention metrics, an integrated transcranial magnetic stimulation navigation system for depression treatment, and LingXi Cloud, a clinical data platform housing over 2.1 million cases of multimodal brain-disorder data at petabyte scale.

BrainAccess released a major update to its desktop application BrainAccess Board on July 27, 2026, featuring a rebuilt interface, improved functionality and a new AI assistant called Jena that monitors device and signal quality in real time. The company, which supplies EEG devices and software for neuroscience research and clinical use, said the update is aimed at ease of use and data management during EEG acquisition and analysis.

BrainAccess, the EEG system line from Neurotechnology, has released a MATLAB API that lets users connect its wireless dry-electrode headsets over Bluetooth, configure channels and sampling rate, start and stop data streams and pull data straight into MATLAB arrays, work that previously required Python, C or the LSL MATLAB toolbox. The toolbox installs as a single .mltbx package for desktop MATLAB R2025b or newer, mirrors the structure of the existing Python API and supports session annotations and saving directly to .mat files, so recordings can go straight into tools such as Signal Processing Toolbox and EEGLAB. BrainAccess devices, sold in MINI, MIDI, MAXI and HALO models, are widely used in neuroscience research and engineering.

MEG systems maker MEGIN says it has opened a side-by-side dual-MEG hyperscanning facility at Tsinghua University in Beijing, built with the Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering at Aalto University. Two MEGIN TRIUX neo systems sit in adjacent magnetically shielded rooms, which the company says allows simultaneous whole-head recording from two interacting participants with millisecond-level synchronization, opening a real-time window on how two brains interact during natural conversation, cooperation and play. MEGIN says the first scientific work from the facility will be presented at the BIOMAG 2026 conference in Beijing, running August 23 to 25, 2026; the announcement does not disclose what the facility cost, how long it took to build, or which research projects are already under way.

Divergence Neuro has added support for BrainBit's DragonEEG to its platform, bringing in a system with 19 EEG channels laid out on the international 10-20 system plus dedicated EMG, ECG and EOG poly channels. The integration gives clinicians, researchers, educators and developers research-grade EEG acquisition inside the Divergence ecosystem for qEEG brain mapping, neuroscience research and professional neurotechnology development, as qEEG use spreads through neurofeedback, mental health and cognitive performance work.

NeuroXess said two people with high-level paralysis played chess against each other across about 800 kilometers, between Shanghai and Nanchang in eastern China, using its "Triple-Full" (三全) brain-computer interface: one selected and placed pieces on a virtual board by thought, with the commands relayed in real time to a robot stand-in that moved the pieces at the other end, where the second participant gripped physical pieces through a brain-controlled exoskeleton glove. The company said the first participant was implanted at Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, in October 2025, moved a cursor by thought on the fifth day after surgery and reached 5.2 bits per second after 17 days of training, while the second was implanted at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University in December 2025 and was eating, drinking and writing with a brain-controlled exoskeleton one month after surgery. The outcomes come from the vendor's own account and have not been validated in peer-reviewed publication.