EMAILS, tweets, Facebook posts, texts, RSS feeds… we are awash with streams of information, endless sources of distraction. How can we keep up, cut through the noise and stay focused on the task at hand? Things would be easier if your computer just knew what you wanted.

Evan Peck is building a system that he believes will do just that. He and his colleagues at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, want to give computers the ability to directly monitor your brain as you work, responding to your needs in real time. In other words, it will act as a filter, letting through information when you want it while keeping the rest at bay. “We can really supercharge the way you consume information,” he claims.

The system utilises a headset that beams infrared light from emitters on a user’s forehead into their prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain associated with planning and decision-making. Some of the light is absorbed by oxygenated haemoglobin, some by the deoxygenated version of the molecule, and some is reflected back out. By measuring the amount of light reaching receivers on the forehead, the system can tell when a user is concentrating intently or not mentally engaged. Matching the readings to what a user is looking at on a screen allows the system to determine what is useful info and what is getting in the way.

The technique, known as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), is a crude brain imager compared with its better-known cousin, fMRI. But infrared sensors are cheap and portable and MRI machines are not. Peck and his team reckon they can glean enough information from their fNIRS rig to turn computers into mind-readers.

Narcissism has long gotten a bad rap. Its unseemly reputation dates back at least to ancient Greek mythology, in which the handsome hunter Narcissus (who undoubtedly would be gloating over his present-day fame) discovered his own reflection in a pool of water and fell in love with it. Narcissus was so transfixed by his image that he died staring at it. In 1914 Sigmund Freud likened narcissism to a sexual perversion in which romantic attraction is directed exclusively to the self. Contemporary views are hardly more flattering. Enter the words “narcissists are” into Google, and the four most popular words completing the phrase are “stupid, “evil,” “bullies” and “selfish.”

In 2008 psychologist Jean M. Twenge of San Diego State University and her colleagues found that narcissism scores have been climbing among American college students in the U.S. for the past few decades. Although the data are controversial, these scholars argue that we are living in an increasingly narcissistic culture.