Niels Birbaumer, a neuroscientist at the University of Tuebingen in Germany, told New Scientist he had looked at the Sony patent and "found it plausible." Birbaumer himself has developed a device that enables disabled people to communicate by reading their brain waves.Sony stated that it hasn't done any experiments, the patent was based on inspiration that this might be used someday in the future. This could allow the development of real virtual worlds in which you can touch, smell and taste.
More info at Yahoo