Typing on a mobile device has never been easy, which is perhaps the reason Facebook has the ex-DARPA chief to help you with this. Regina Dugan who has been associated with the Google’s advanced projects division post her DARPA stint is working on a project that envisions us to communicate straight from the brain.
Put in other words, all future communication won’t require us to engage in any sort of typing. Instead, our thoughts which we wish to share will get typed automatically. At least, that is what Dugan heading Building 8, the advanced consumer hardware division within Facebook aims to achieve within the next few years.
Explaining further, Dugan said it is not that every random thought that we might be having at any particular point in time will get typed. Rather, it is only those thoughts that get transferred to the speech center of our brain that will eventually be typed out. Initially, the speed targeted is 100 words per min which is easily five times faster than typing on a smartphone.
Also, while the technology might seem too Sci-Fi at the moment, Dugan stated it is something that is not overtly impossible either. The technology that Dugan is attempting calls for non-invasive sensors that would be sensitive enough to measure brain waves several hundred times each second. Currently, the same can already be achieved but requires implantation of the electrode within the brain via surgical means.
Hence, to achieve the same sort of precision using non-invasive means is proving to be as challenging as it no doubt seems though Dugan exuded confidence they will be able to make it past those soon enough. Currently, Dugan’s team comprises of sixty of the best brains in the capacity of engineers, system engineers and scientists.
No wonder the member’s lineage can be traced back to such hallowed institutions such as the Washington University School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins Medicine, to name just a few.
And if you though the above is enough for Dugan and her team to handle at the moment, well the other futuristic project Building 8 is up to entails hearing with our skin. Dugan said the necessary hardware and software that would allow us to be aware of words spoken by other and picked up via our skin sensations is already being worked on but warned it could be a few years before such becomes operational.
