On its annual developer conference, F8, Facebook shared some pretty amazing technology that the company has been working on. In particular, its Research and Development division has been developing interface that lets you type “with your mind” and ways to hear from your skin. Sounds crazy? It is. But it’s also real, so keep reading…To give you some background, F8 is a conference where Facebook has been sharing some futuristic stuff for the past years. Last year, it was all about VR and chat bots – some of those ideas are more likely to make it than others. But that doesn’t mean it’s just dreams. The new Building 8 research lab of Facebook has been dedicating a lot of manpower towards research that could really change our world significantly.
First of all, let’s start with the “brain-computer interface”. Facebook revealed that 60 engineers have been spending their last six months towards developing a way to translate your thoughts into text. Via optical imaging, the team’s prototypes scan your brain hundreds of times and detect your thoughts, translating them into text.
Eventually, Facebook wants people to be able to type 100 words per minute from their minds, which is five times as fast as typing on a phone. Right now, typing from your brain is possible with implants, but Facebook says it can make it work without them and has even put a timeframe on their project – they want to reach the 100 words per minute goal in three years. Facebook also says it will only translate thoughts you sent to the speech center of your brain.
The other mind-blowing tech has been dubbed “skin-hearing”. Instead of using your ears, Facebook has been building hardware that mimics how they function and translates sound for your brain. This technology could let deaf people hear, Facebook says.
Want to know more? Here’s a more detailed explanation on TechCrunch.
