Facebook is looking at new ways to transform how people communicate in the future.
It might sound like it's straight out of science fiction, but its closer than you may
realize.
Facebook has started working on two new cutting-edge projects that could change the way humans
engage with devices.
Name of the devices are
1. Type with Your Brain
2. Hearing through Touch
Let's get started to dig in depth
Facebook has a goal of creating a silent speech system, which can type 100 words per minute
straight from your brain and is five times faster than you can type from your Smartphone.
People talking to a friend or family member face to face would no longer need to interrupt
a conversation by picking up their smart phone to send a message.
Showing a video of a patient with ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a neurodegenerative disease,
Regina Dugan, who leads a team at Building 8 in the company's research lab, pointed
out that Stanford researchers have already found a way to do this but it required surgery
in which electrodes are implanted into the brain.
But the system that Facebook hopes to build wouldn't be invasive, relying instead on
the use of sensors that measure brain activity.
Facebook also isn't interested in decoding our random thoughts.
It only helps people to share what they want.
What Facebook dreams, is a technology that would resemble a neural network, allowing
users to share thoughts the way they share photos today.
This technology also could function as a speech prosthetic for people with communication disorders.
Facebook is not the only company working on technology that could allow a direct brain-computer
connection.
Elon Musk launched NEURALINK, a startup dedicated to developing a "NEURAL LACE" technology that
could allow the implanting of small electrodes into the brain.
One difference between Facebook's "type with your brain" concept and Musk's neural mesh
project is that Facebook wants it to be noninvasive.
That's a tough one, because the electrical impulses in the brain are very small and the
skull is not a great conductor.
The nerve signals outside the skull that trigger muscles are much stronger, so reading brain
waves noninvasively means filtering a lot of much-stronger noise.
The existing 'NEURAL CAP' technologies that allegedly let wearers, say, learn to control
computer games with their brains, are actually training them to unconsciously use their eyebrow
and forehead muscles.
The other project which Facebook announced would change the way user's communication
experience.
It would allow user to "hear" through the skin.
The human body has, on average, about two square meters of skin that is packed with
sensors.
New technologies could use them to enable individuals to receive information via a "haptic vocabulary".
Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind, decoded language by the slight pressure changes created
by puffs of air and vibrations when she placed her hands over a person's throat and jaw.
Just as Braille has allowed the blind to read, Facebook's technology to hear through the
skin could be a game changer for those who are deaf.
Sound through the skin sounds more like a tool for the profoundly deaf than for everyday use.
It's also trying to create hardware and software that would allow people to process
language through their skin, which contains a network of nerves that sends information
to your brain.
The part of the inner ear called the cochlea takes in sound and separates it into frequency
components that are sent to the brain.
The project also does the same work of the cochlea but transmit the resulting frequency
information instead via your skin by typing with your mind and decoding language with
your skin.
Project planning
About 60 employees currently are working on the Building8 projects, who are basically
machine learning and neural prosthetic experts.
Facebook likely will expand this team, adding experts with experience in brain-computer
interfaces and neural imaging.
The plan is to develop noninvasive sensors that can measure brain activity and decode
the signals that are associated with language in real time.
Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said that, the technology would have advance considerably
before individuals would be able to share pure thoughts or feelings, but the current
effort can be viewed as the first step toward that goal.
Zuckerberg emphasized that Facebook is taking the first steps toward development of these
technologies, and it could be a lot time before they have practical applications.
These dreams are still far from reality and Facebook's success isn't certain.
But that technology can help to improve the way people communicate.
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