This article from AP talks about developers at Honda in Tokyo who say they have developed a very primitive brain-machine interface and that

"..it has developed a technology that uses brain signals to control a robot's very simple moves."

They use an MRI to detect certain activity in your brain and then record the MRI images as a pattern. Once the pattern has been identified you can associate with a device to perform some kind of process/action. This is pretty cool. Once you have a means of detecting what people are thinking based on movements or even emotions (?), which could detect when you are thristy, tired or "whatever", the applications are endless. Well being able to activate and control devices in a freaky jedi-like manner would be a sure way to get the star wars/star trek buffs into a frenzy. "... you don't need to see their identification..".