In addition to typing, the system could also serve as a sort of computer mouse for your brain, which would allow you to perform "yes/no" clicks, among other commands. The company said it intends to build both the hardware and software to achieve its goal, and has enlisted a team of more than 60 scientists and academics to work on the project.
She showed the audience a video of a Facebook tester feeling "the acoustic shape" of words on her arm. The system would be capable of "typing" 100 words per minute by decoding users' neural activity, which is five times faster than we're able to type on smartphones. "Your brain activity contains more information than what a word sounds like and how it's spelled; it also contains semantic information of what those words mean". We have taken a distinctly different, non-invasive and deeply scientific approach to building a brain-computer speech-to-text interface. Dugan characterized it as "a few years away". And Michael Abrash, chief scientist at Facebook-owned Oculus Research, laid out the company's vision for AR glasses that could blend the real world with digital information. "Our goal is to create and ship new, category-defining consumer products that are social first, at scale".
The technology may not require thinking in actual letters, she said. This tech has been in development to aid people with disabilities, working a little like a Braille that you feel with your body rather than your fingers. The lab also is working on a way for people to hear through their skin. But the system that Facebook hopes to build wouldn't be invasive, relying instead on the use of sensors. Dugan showed a video example of how a woman could figure out exactly what objects were selected on a touchscreen based on inputs delivered through a connected armband.
Facebook started the Building 8 group a year ago, and put it in the hands of Dugan, who had previously led an advanced-technology projects group at Google. It's a future where we won't type status updates, or talk to one another, or read screens. Researchers have been trying to use the skin to transmit language for decades - though with limited degrees of success.
It's one of many Facebook initiatives for the very long term.
She said the power of the brain is much greater than what is translated through speech, comparing the brain's ability versus speech to "four HD movies per second streaming over a 1980s dial-up modem".
Details were relatively scant as to what this would really look like, though a Stanford University experiment Dugan referenced relied on "an array of electrodes the size of a pea" implanted inside the subject's brain.
Facebook wants to make it possible to type out a text message when the words pop up in your mind and "hear" language from the vibrations felt on our skin, moonshot projects that could transform the way people communicate in the future.
"Eventually, we want to turn it into a wearable technology that can be manufactured at scale". Each thing we learn about it seems to lead to more mysteries that we have yet to understand.