Facebook now wants to connect to your brain

pulse

April 21, 2017 12:24 PM

"Brain-Computer Interfaces" could be the keyboard of the future.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebooks annual developer conference, F8, just wrapped up and was filled with announcements of future plans and projects.

One of the more notable tidbits came from the notoriously secretive Building 8 research group, when they announced plans to develop technology that would allow people to type with their brains, at speeds faster than humanly possible.

According to an article published by The Verge, Regina Dugan, a former director of DARPA and now head of the Building 8 group, said that the goal of the project is to create “something as simple as a yes-no brain click," which would completely change how we interact with technology.

In case this sounds like a familiar concept, it's because Stanford University has already created a similar technology that has been shown to enable people with paralysis to communicate without use of their hands.

But that technology requires users to have an implant in their brain, which Dugan said in the announcement would not be the case with their technology. “We think optical imaging is the best place to start.”

This could translate to some sort of hat-like or goggle device, so rest easy, no implanted chips necessary.

However, this will take years to develop.

For the time being ,they are working on an implant-style prototype to put to test in medical settings, with the ultimate goal of creating a non-invasive way to implement the technology.

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