Facebook Announces New Brain-Computer Interfacing Projects
Orange County, CA - April 24th 2017 - Earlier last week Facebook held its annual F8 conference in San Jose, California. To close out the second day of conference, Regina Dugan took the stage to reveal their newest project: brain-computer interfacing. Dugan is the head of Building 8, Facebooks’ secretive research and development division. “What if you could type directly from your brain? It’s closer than you think,” teased Dugan during her talk on April 19.The intent behind the project is to offer a communication method between patients stricken with immobilizing diseases. Dugan shared a video of a woman who, although paralyzed with ALS, could “type” with just her thoughts at eight words per minute thanks to a pea-sized brain neural prosthetic. Facebook’s vision for brain-computer interfacing (BCI) takes this a step further wanting to establish a method of communication called “silent speech.” Dugan went on to explain that thoughts an individual wishes to send would be communicated silently through BCI and decoded as text at 100 WPM, ensuring the privacy of typed text with the flexibility and speed of voice.
Dugan also shared that this technology was in development to help translate languages. “[Your brain] contains semantic information that tells us what words mean. In your brain, a cup is not the label ‘cup’ […] understanding semantics means that one day we may be able to choose to share our thoughts independent of language. English, Spanish, or Mandarin- they become the same. After all, the word ‘cup’ is just a compressed thought.” This compressed thought is what Facebook hopes to translate out via text using just brainwaves.Next, Dugan revealed a project that would allow users to “hear” through their skin. Using an armband consisting of actuators tuned to 16 frequency bands, haptic sensations would pulse in a unique pattern that the user would decode- much in the same way Braille letters can be decoded through fingers.
This is only the beginning for Facebook. By combining the BCI and the haptic speech system, Dugan explained that a user could mentally communicate a word in Mandarin while the other user could feel the word in Spanish. This technology can be “frightening” as Dugan put it, but also a fascinating use of neurotechnology that can alter social behaviors. Additionally this method of communication has the potential to improve the quality of life for those suffering from hearing, speech, or vision impairments, along with neurological diseases.
“In a few years’ time we expect to demonstrate a real-time silent speech system capable of delivering 100 WPM,” Dugan promised. All eyes are on Facebook in anticipation of this project’s actualization and debut on the consumer market.