In a breakthrough which promises new technology like that from The Matrix, researchers at HRL Laboratories have developed a programme which they say can upload new skills and knowledge directly to your brain.

The California-based institution analysed electrical signals in the brain of a pilot and fed the data to people who didn't have the knowledge to fly planes via electrode-embedded head caps which stimulated the correct regions of the brain.

The participants who were fed the information via electrodes were then pitted against a placebo group on a realistic flight simulation test, which found that the former performed an average of 33 per cent better than the latter, according to the results published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

Lead author Dr Matthew Phillips explained: "Our system is one of the first of its kind. It's a brain stimulation system.