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2017 is a weird time, man. On one hand, we’ve yet to find a cure for cancer or a better way to put out massive fires than a powerful hose or a more enjoyable way to have safe sex than sliding a rubber balloon down your shaft. But, on the other hand, we’ve got self-driving trucks and selfie sticks and more Snapchat filters than gallons of water in the ocean.
A company called Ctrl-Labs plans to add to this technological imbalance by creating a wristband that lets you send text messages and emails using just your thoughts, and it could be available as soon as next year.
The New York start-up has created brianwave-reading technology that it hopes will become mainstream by 2020, the New York Post reports. The technology is capable of generating text by picking up signals a person’s brain sends to their fingers, meaning you can “type” without touching a keyboard.
As you can imagine, it takes some pretty big brains to conjure up something this technologically advanced. Ctrl-Labs was founded by neuroscience experts Dr. Patrick Kaifosh and Dr. Thomas Reardon, the man who created the Internet Explorer browser. Kaifosh is already able to play a game of Asteroids on his iPhone with the device.
“We are developing systems to connect your neural output to machines as tightly as it is connected to the muscles that control your speech,” Kaifosh said.
The technology is already being used to train patients to use a virtual hand before receiving hand transplants from donors, the Post claims.
Kaifosh and Reardon aren’t the only ones trying to read our minds. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook wants to read your mind at 100 words per minute using brain-scanning technology and Elon Musk vows to release a device which plugs humans’ brains into computers within four years.
I know I’m preaching to the choir here when I say that 98.5 percent of my thoughts don’t belong anywhere but in the deep recesses of my brain. I don’t need a fucking computer judging me for thinking Honey Boo Boo is hot.
[h/t New York Post]