Facebook confirms working on brain-computer interface

Facebook has confirmed it is working on a brain-computer interface. That means the social network is developing a technique that allows users to formulate status updates by thinking the words.

Typing should be five times faster than typing on a smartphone, claims Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Mind reading must work through sensors that monitor activity in the speech part of the brain. By converting the activity in the brain into words, it should be possible to type by thinking the words.

It is a project that can last a total of two years and which takes place in Facebook’s laboratory Building 8, as it turned out during Facebook’s F8 developer conference. The social network has not yet shown any of the hardware to use the brainwaves for typing text. Last month there was already a rumor about such a project at the company behind the social network.

In addition to the brain-computer interface, Facebook talked about a project where the deaf could hear by vibrating the skin on their arm. That should work something like Braille for the blind. That project has no deadline yet and the results may take longer.