Brain to net is the future. One step closer to it is brain to text. A paralyzed man succeeded to write 19 words per minute in the computer. Just by drawing the letters in his mind. One step closer to the future!
Communication between computers and humans just by thought was a hot selling concept in movies since many years. It has long been also a goal of the brain-computer interface (BCI) community.
Studies on brain to text
Recent studies on brain to text try to take advantage of the high spatial resolution, high temporal resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio of signals recorded directly from the brain.
Recently, scientists implanted two tiny-hair fine- electrodes into the left side of the brain of a man. The man was paralyzed since 2007, after he got a spinal cord injury. The man’s code name is T5 for obvious reasons. So, Mr. T5 started to imagine that he was writing with a pen on a paper. The implanted sensors who were placed in the outer layer of his brain, succeeded to detect the visualisation of the moves he was thinking of.
An algorithm had the hard job to decode – or transcode – the motion for each letter. By this procedure, the activity was translated into text, which appeared on the computer screen.
If you consider this procedure as long lasting and boring, we have good news: The speed is almost as high as someone without such health problems is texting on a smartphone.
By using the brain to net method, Mr. T5 managed to type 90 characters per minute. It is about 18 words, when the average of a typical person is 23 words per minute.
No need to suffer
Millions of people who suffer from the same problem as Mr. T5, now can feel sure that the moment where they will be able to communicate is not far.
Main target for the moment is to restore the ability to communicate by text.
Scientists are working since many years in developing brain to computer interfaces that will be able to allow people with paralysis to communicate their thoughts to their environment.
Of course, there is a lot that has to be done before this technology finds its way to be widely available.
As a conclusion, we see that our forecasts for the evolvement from internet to brain net is not just a fantasy.
Looking forward to the evolvements in the next forthcoming years, not in the next decades.
