Facebook Buys CTRL-Labs, Startup That Makes Neural- and Movement-Monitoring Armband (techcrunch.com) 18
Facebook is buying CTRL-labs, a NY-based startup building an armband that translates movement and the wearer's neural impulses into digital input signals. TechCrunch reports: Bloomberg pegs the deal between $500 million and $1 billion. A source close to the matter tells TechCrunch the same. The acquisition, which has not yet closed, will bring the startup into the company's Facebook Reality Labs division. CTRL-labs' CEO and co-founder Thomas Reardon, a veteran technologist whose accolades include founding the team at Microsoft that built Internet Explorer, will be joining Facebook, while CTRL-labs' employees will have the option to do the same, we are told.
Facebook has talked a lot about working on a non-invasive brain input device that can make things like text entry possible just by thinking. So far, most of the company's progress on that project appears to be taking the form of university research that they've funded. With this acquisition, the company appears to be working more closely with technology that could one day be productized. CTRL-labs' technology isn't focused on text-entry as much as it is muscle movement, and hand movements specifically. The startup's progress was most recently distilled in a developer kit that paired multiple types of sensors together to accurately determine the wearer's hand position. The wrist-worn device offered developers an alternative to camera-based or glove-based hand-tracking solutions. The company has previously talked about AR and VR input as a clear use case for the kit.
Facebook has talked a lot about working on a non-invasive brain input device that can make things like text entry possible just by thinking. So far, most of the company's progress on that project appears to be taking the form of university research that they've funded. With this acquisition, the company appears to be working more closely with technology that could one day be productized. CTRL-labs' technology isn't focused on text-entry as much as it is muscle movement, and hand movements specifically. The startup's progress was most recently distilled in a developer kit that paired multiple types of sensors together to accurately determine the wearer's hand position. The wrist-worn device offered developers an alternative to camera-based or glove-based hand-tracking solutions. The company has previously talked about AR and VR input as a clear use case for the kit.
Pegging (Score:1)
Sorry to be nit picky, but we expect editors to do their jobs on the summaries.
Harvesting User Data (Score:2)
It's as if everyone is on the bandwagon these days. "harvesting anything the user does == money!"
Harvesting low level individual impulses: ooh imagine how you could improve your digital model of that individual user!
Fantastic isnt' it. You look at your coworker's tits and Facebook knows. You try not to look, they know too.
Just hypothetical of course.
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What I'm wondering is: how can users data be worth more than the profits that will ever be generated from those users.
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I'm having the same question. How much money is there to be gained in reality. With Google a central concept is clickthrough rate. This is just a measure of success but with such a short feedback cycle that it allows Google to learn fast about what works and with whom it works. Google
became big so the other companies think "whatever they are doing must be right". Ford at least has a clear idea that their insurance branch will be able to reap benefits from the user data in their cars. That makes sens
fb knows that it's doing. (Score:3)
the most important text a Human alive today should read (for implications): https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04... [waitbutwhy.com]
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The future is in Body Mass Index? Damn, I better go on a diet!
In a more serious note, everything is acronyms these days and there's a lot of overlap from different domains.
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resistance (Score:2)
Hand tracking without anything in your hands? (Score:2)
Hand tracking without anything in your hands seems like a huge win, and a natural complement to the AR glasses Facebook is working on. When working in a combination of real and virtual worlds, you don't want to have to constantly pick up and set down VR controllers.
On a technological level I'm really excited by the direction Oculus is taking. The fact that they're owned by Facebook really kills my enthusiasm though - given their long history of abuse I refuse to have a Facebook surveillance device in my h
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The things that ctrl-labs makes is absolute shit for fine movements.
You can't get accuracy with skin electrodes.
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How fine do you really need to be useful? Especially when supplemented by the "inside out" feeds from head-set tracking cameras (assuming that's what's used for the AR glasses)
Bracelets could easily track your wrist position accurately using other means if necessary, and you could get a very powerful range of features if you standardized on a few basic gestures to begin with. e.g:
Point with finger in a specific position for accurate "tapping" - point wrong, and maybe it mis-tracks, s
FUCK OFF, FACEBOOK. (Score:2)
another use? (Score:1)