Facebook Gets Closer To Letting You Type With Your Mind (cnn.com) 70
An anonymous reader shares a report: More than two years ago, Facebook revealed it was working on a project for typing words onto a computer right from your brain, without requiring invasive surgery to make it work. The company has been working with several universities on the effort, including the University of California, San Francisco. Facebook helped pay for UCSF researchers to study whether electrodes placed in the brain could help us learn to "decode" speech from brainwaves in real time. As it turns out, this is possible: A study published Tuesday showed that researchers could instantly see -- as text on a computer screen -- a word or phrase that a participant was thinking from brain activity, as long as it was a response to a limited set of questions. The study includes three epilepsy patients voluntarily implanted with electrodes.
Facebook is also footing the bill for a new, year-long study that UCSF is currently conducting where it will try to use brain activity to help a person who can't speak communicate. The social network hopes the efforts could help reveal which brain signals are key for that non-invasive wearable that it's planning for in the years ahead. "We expect that to take upwards of 10 years," Mark Chevillet, a research director at Facebook Reality Labs who runs its brain-computer interface group, told CNN Business of the overall project. "This is a long-term research program."
Facebook is also footing the bill for a new, year-long study that UCSF is currently conducting where it will try to use brain activity to help a person who can't speak communicate. The social network hopes the efforts could help reveal which brain signals are key for that non-invasive wearable that it's planning for in the years ahead. "We expect that to take upwards of 10 years," Mark Chevillet, a research director at Facebook Reality Labs who runs its brain-computer interface group, told CNN Business of the overall project. "This is a long-term research program."
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Okay, but now try it outside of Porn Mode.
Oh good that way (Score:4, Funny)
I'll have both hands free, umm you know, to use my phone
This is totally not at all sinister (Score:2, Funny)
Nothing to see here, move along.
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Leela: "Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?"
Fry: "Well sure, but not in our dreams! Only on TV and radio... and in magazines... and movies. And at ball games, on buses, and milk cartons, and t-shirts, and bananas, and written on the sky. But not in dreams! No sirree."
It will show you typing. (Score:4, Insightful)
But it will be processing all the other signals it gets to give you a better advertising experience... and learn where your bank accounts are...
Looks like we got the Borg wrong. (Score:1)
Turns out that Facebook is how the Borg was created, not Microsoft. Poor Bill Gates had that Borg icon for decades, and it should have been Zuckerberg all along!
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Inappropes, dude.
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And being a control freak is what made Apple successful. I'm pretty sure the butterfly keyboard would never have been approved if he was still here.
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Zuckerborg, you mean.
There's always an evil empire. The branding changes, but the M.O. remains more or less the same.
Translation (Score:2)
great idea (Score:5, Funny)
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The fact that you're on FaceBook means that whatever happens to you and your "friends" is irrelevant. You're part of the problem.
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Yeah, that was pretty much my first thought too. Let Facebook root through my mind? NO.
Saying what you think is a bad idea. (Score:2)
What I think and what I say may be very different. I may think that a particular person is a huge jerk and I wouldn't mind if the person left and I wouldn't see them for the rest of my life. However, I know this person has value, and is currently needed by me, and giving the impression that I don't like the person will not benefit anyone. It would actually just make both of our lives more difficult.
Being able to self censor yourself is a useful skill. This isn't being politically correct, or untruthful
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I no longer use Facebook, but... with some of the ranty shit I've seen over the years... I'm sure the quality of rants will hit epic levels of hilarity when they actually become raw dumps of brain juice.
From what I've seen, Twitter already plugs directly into the limbic brain. That's why large batches of 'dialog' on that medium seem to come from Denisovians.
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Riiiiiight (Score:2)
"Facebook Gets Closer To Letting You Type With Your Mind"
Nothin' creepy about that, no sir, not one bit.
Wrong title (Score:2)
"Facebook Gets Closer To Letting You Type With Your Mind "
should be:
Facebook Gets Closer To Reading Your Mind.
Oh, the horror!
Meanwhile, 20 Minutes Into the Future (Score:2)
At the latest board meeting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Blipverts!
It's a trap (Score:3)
The device puts thoughts in your head and types them out at the same time. You only think you're typing with your mi -- No it doesn't do that. Wait, why did I just type tha -- I actually meant to type that.
More important if (Score:2)
More important if it lets you type without using your mind. Wait it already does that.
Day late and a billion dollars or so short... (Score:2)
FB? What a joke. DARPA and NIH are both in line way, way ahead of FB and I doubt that they've got it yet either.
I would personally like to apologise (Score:2)
No Worries (Score:2)
There's nothing to fear because all their mind reading is going to detect is things like "Facebook sucks" and "Zuck is a dick".
read somewhere else (Score:1)