Keyboards and mice may seem like clunky artifacts of the past within the next five years, pushed aside in favor of the ultimate user interface: the human mind.

That’s according to IBM, which just published its “5 in 5″ forecast: a prediction about five innovations that will fundamentally change our world within the next five years. The most head-turning prediction: we’ll be able to use the power of our minds to operate machines.

This isn’t telepathy, so those hoping to get a real-time stream of thoughts from an individual had best look to shows like Heroes or Bablylon 5. What IBM envisions is using a simple brain-machine interface (BMI) that can detect different kinds of brainwaves and tell a computer to respond a certain way.

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