Facebook will help people type text with their thoughts

Facebook has just announced that it will research a project that will allow users to create text directly from their brains and communicate with each other through the skin of their hands.

Regina Dugan is sharing about Facebook's ambitious project.

Facebook's F8 2017 conference has just ended. During the 2 days, there were quite a few projects that the world's largest social network is implementing. Facebook revealed that it has 60 engineers working on a brain-computer system, allowing users to type with their thoughts, without having to use other parts of their body.

The team plans to use optical imaging to scan a human brain 100 times per second to detect “silent speech,” that is, thoughts in the head, and translate it into text.

This is one of the ambitious projects of Building 8 - a unit founded a year ago and has been quietly developing bold projects, expanding the scale of hardware prototypes, covering everything from cameras and augmented reality to brain scanning technology like in sci-fi movies.

Facebook aims to use brain implants that have helped people type 8 words per minute and Facebook will cooperate with researchers at many universities in the US to create a "non-invasive system" that can type text directly from thoughts at a maximum speed of up to 100 words per minute.

This project, when realized, will be a useful tool for people with disabilities, including normal people who want to contact friends without touching the phone.

In addition to writing with thoughts, Building 8 has also developed a system that can hear sounds through the skin. The system combines both hardware and software, turning the skin into a part that functions like the cochlea inside the ear, capable of "translating" sounds into frequencies and transmitting them to the brain.

Facebook hopes it will help deaf people hear easily without hearing aids, and without using their ears.

Last December, Facebook signed an agreement with 17 universities, including Harvard and Princeton, to support the above projects. Responsible for managing this project is Ms. Dugan, former Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the US Department of Defense.

According to VNN