Facebook has publicly announced that the facebook team is developing brain powered technology in this year’s F8 conference. A group of 60 Facebook engineers is working on a brain-computer interface which will enable users to enter text with their brain. The plan is to use optical imaging to scan the human brain about a hundred times per second, thus picking up an individual’s silent speaking voice.
Building 8 at the F8 keynote
Regina Dugan, the former head of Google’s experimental ATAP research group is currently leading the Facebook’s R&D division Building 8. The initial goal is to let human beings enter a hundred words per minute which means the new solution will enable people to type five times faster than on phones.
Dugan has stated that this technology is not being created to invade private thoughts. It is about interpreting the words that a person has already intended to share and sending it to the center of the brain. Facebook compared this process with going through all your pictures before deciding on the appropriate one to post.
Zero privacy?
The technology will not at any stage require an invasive implant of any kind. Previously paralyzed patients have been able to type eight words per minute with the aid of invasive electrodes. Neural messaging is said not to need any invasive implant to translate thoughts into words.
Institutions such as UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is said to be collaborating with Building 8 to build this next generation technology.
This is not the first time Facebook has been the center of creating life-changing technology. The company is also said to be working on telegraph wifi nodes, a wifi connectivity project used to enable internet access in remote areas and Facebook is working on a 360° camera.
YouTube: Regina Dugan’s Keynote at Facebook F8 2017 (by Inverse)
Photo credit: Facebook / PopTech
Source: Facebook press release
