The world is getting weirder and Facebook is only adding to the conundrum by introducing mind-boggling technology and concepts that make you scratch your brain (quite literally). And this time again, the social media giant has introduced concepts that make you wonder if this charade is ever going to end (no seriously).
On the second day of its annual developers’ conference F8, the company introduced some astonishing concepts that it is working on, and one of them will make people type with their brains.
Regina Dugan, VP of Engineering at Facebook, on the second day of the company’s annual developers’ conference announced that at Building 8, a team of 60 scientists are working on two projects that are focused on silent speech communications. For those unaware Building 8 is the product development and research team at Facebook focused on creating and shipping new, category-defining consumer products that are social-first, and that advance Facebook’s mission (of global domination, maybe?).
As a part of its first project, the company is developing advanced sensors that will help people to ‘type with their brains’. Their aim is to create a system that is capable of typing 100 words in a minute straight from your brain that too without burring a hole in your skull (like the traditional sensors that are directly connected to the brain). For the record, that is five times faster than you can type on a smartphone.
Our brains produce data to stream 4 HD movies in a second. “The problem is that the best way we have to get information out into the world — speech — can only transmit about the same amount of data as a 1980s modem,” Mark Zuckerberg shared in a Facebook post.
Eventually, the company want to turn it into a wearable technology that can be manufactured at scale (and one day possibly eliminate the need of using a smartphone– yes, it’s all a part of the master plan!).
“you have many thoughts and choose to share only some of them. This is about decoding those words you’ve already decided to share by sending them to the speech centre of your brain. We want to do this with non-invasive, wearable sensors that can be manufactured at scale,” the company wrote in a blog post.
ALSO READ: Facebook F8 2017: Camera, Messenger 2.0 and more. All you need to know
But that’s not it as the company has another project in line that intends to allow people to hear with their skin, which FYI is the largest organ in the body. “We are building the hardware and software necessary to deliver language through the skin,” the company added (isn’t that scary or what!)
Fortunately for us, this technology doesn’t exist as of now. And it will take the company at least four to five years to make a viable product. Till the time that happens, we have a few private moments to enjoy.
