[HN Gopher] Neural implant lets paralyzed person type by imagini...
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Neural implant lets paralyzed person type by imagining writing
Author : Engineering-MD
Score : 196 points
Date : 2021-05-12 19:14 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| tyingq wrote:
| Might be good to remove the ?comments=1 from the linked url so it
| doesn't scroll you past the article.
| dang wrote:
| Done. Thanks!
| pgroves wrote:
| All it needs to be able to do is page-down or scroll-down and I
| want it (I have RSI problems in my hands).
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| You can already get a gaze-tracking program to do this. (You
| can prototype one in MIT Scratch - yes, really!)
| dahart wrote:
| Even the free-form mode 75 character per minute sounds amazingly
| fast for a thought interface.
|
| I wonder what it's like to use. I know there have been many
| attempts at this, and they're steadily improving, but I watched a
| talk at EvoMusArt 2007 where researchers used a smaller array of
| cranial electrodes to have the user control a mouse. That it
| worked blew my mind. But they talked about how slow and noisy it
| was to get the cursor from one side to the other... maybe a
| minute IIRC. What I remember most distinctly was the researcher
| said it was physically draining to do, that after 5-7 minutes of
| this activity they would be sweating and exhausted, without
| moving.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Reading this, I can't help but think of this great novella, Free
| Radical, based on System Shock
| http://www.shamusyoung.com/shocked/
| Alupis wrote:
| Can someone explain what is new about this generation of the
| tech?
|
| People have been able to move mouse cursors and type using only
| their brain and tiny implants for decades... so far Neuralink
| seems to just be repeating these experiments, but receives a lot
| more hype.
|
| Here's an article from 2006[1] with someone moving a mouse cursor
| and clicking things with a similar tiny brain implant.
|
| Is there something new here, or just the Musk train?
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/science/13brain.html
| RamRodification wrote:
| For me, having also seen the cursors and clicking type stuff in
| the past, what seems _new_ to me (although I don 't know for
| sure that it actually is new) is that they can now read minds
| on the fidelity of unique letters rather than just more simple
| "directions" like up, down, in, out.
| Ardon wrote:
| Previous efforts were more inaccurate, you may remember hearing
| jargon like "alpha waves" or "beta waves". Participants would
| learn to move cursors by learning to create the neurological
| activity that was being listened for.
|
| This, on the other hand, is watching for complex neural
| activity, in that it learns what pattern appears when a
| participant pictures drawing an A.
|
| Think of the difference like: before the input was controlled
| by turning your whole body, and now the input can take
| individual sign language letters.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| I remember when I first learned to touch-type as a child, and for
| many years after, I would sometimes 'type' things out on my legs,
| tabletops, notebooks. At first it was to practice, but after I
| had mastered typing I kept doing it just because it was still
| novel to be able to type and feel like I knew how to use
| technology. Doing that made me realize that typing a character is
| a very specific and atomic action (compared to writing by hand),
| as well as an automatic one (once you learn how to touch-type). I
| wonder if the performance of this solution could be improved by
| training it to detect the mental impulses that occur when a
| trained typist imagines typing a character, rather than when the
| person imagines writing out a character.
| sneak wrote:
| I still do that (tap things out in qwerty when not at a
| keyboard) constantly. I type well over 100wpm, and qwerty is
| very, very deep in my brain. On occasions I am significantly
| intoxicated (pretty rare for me) I can still type accurately at
| >50wpm even if my words are slurred.
|
| There have been times I wanted to switch layouts but qwerty is
| just too far in there for too many decades.
| lazysheepherd wrote:
| I've been practicing touch typing for over 5 years now. I
| seem to be capped at around ~65 WPM. I sometimes wonder if it
| will stay there, or will it improve.
|
| I take this to test my speed:
| https://10fastfingers.com/advanced-typing-test/english
|
| Now I've tried to take the test again after roughly a year,
| out of curiosity, and I got around 75 several times. Maybe it
| will improve very slowly past this level?
|
| Do you perhaps remember how the improvement trend was with
| you?
| wincy wrote:
| I played Everquest and would be running from monsters while
| typing as a young teenager. So I'd have to type as fast as
| possible. I touch type around 120 wpm without ever being
| formally trained.
|
| Maybe try something that forces you to type quickly like
| the game The Typing of the Dead or The Typing of the Dead
| 2? They're silly games but might help since they add
| urgency to the typing.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| You get better over time if you intentionally practice
| improvement. If you don't, 60-70wpm is a common threshold.
|
| My gut feeling is that this is simply the speed range where
| the benefits of faster typing during composing quickly fall
| off. If you're thinking about what to say, you'll write a
| burst, think, write, think, change a bit, write some more-
| the limiting factor isn't really WPM.
|
| Transcribing, of course, is another matter, but that is a
| specialized case.
| float4 wrote:
| Do you play an instrument? I have a feeling that I can
| type quickly (well over 100wpm) because I play the piano
| as well.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| I play guitar, and I am certain that practicing the fine-
| motor sync skill of using both hands at once has helped
| my typing, and vice-versa.
|
| For reference, my typing while transcribing rate is in
| the 100-110 range. My daily-use composition is likely
| half, simply because I spend most of my time composing in
| my head.
|
| I will say that the big advantage comes from being
| completely comfortable touch-typing, without needing to
| look at the keyboard. Once you've achieved that, the
| mental load of typing fades in to the background, and you
| can spend more time considering content instead of the
| mechanics of creating it.
| lazysheepherd wrote:
| Yes, you might be on something here. Tried to reflect
| back on it after reading your comment, and I think I
| "feel" content with my current writing speed.
|
| Will try to feel less satisfied with my writing speed,
| and see if it will help. Thank you for taking time to
| share!
| taneq wrote:
| Online chatting, too. My typing speed increased
| dramatically when I started having conversations online.
| sneak wrote:
| I have been over 100wpm (on qwerty) since a teenager, and
| I'm in my late 30s now, so unfortunately no. (My scores are
| routinely 115-125 these days.)
| lazysheepherd wrote:
| This makes me suspect it might be like instrument
| playing. A lot easier to learn while young. I'm 29 right
| now and I've started practicing around 23-24. A bit too
| late for this kind of muscle memory I guess.
|
| Thank you for sharing, was useful to compare!
| elliekelly wrote:
| Have you ever tried to label a blank keyboard from memory? Even
| though you _know_ where all of the letters are and use them all
| the time without thinking it's almost impossible.
| dalbasal wrote:
| I'm bilingual. My memory committed phone numbers and such are
| stored in one language only. To translate them, I need to
| write the number down and read it in the other language.
| temac wrote:
| You can't visualize the numbers? Or translate the "audio"
| in your mind?
| dalbasal wrote:
| I can, but it's easier to write it, if I'm at a desk.
| Audio-translating is harder than it seems that it should
| be... especially if I"m struggling to recall the number.
| I suspect that recall and translation are like lead
| guitar and vocals.
| lazysheepherd wrote:
| Indeed! It is like entering a pincode on a keypad for the
| office door every single day. Then the new guy calls and asks
| you about the pin, and you have NO idea. This happened to me
| and I had to put my hand on something flat and see myself
| typing.
|
| I suspect this is some part due to the arrangement of the
| numbers. Numbers on keypads in these kind of devices often
| has "1 2 3" on the top row. Whereas on the keybaords and
| calculators it is reverse. The top row there goes "7 8 9".
| lathiat wrote:
| In the early days of card payment terminals my mum couldn't
| remember her PIN number to pay at a shop. Had to run over
| to an ATM and do a pretend transaction and take note of
| what she entered.
| grishka wrote:
| I totally can do that with the Russian layout. _Probably_ can
| with Latin too, but I won 't be so sure.
| sebmellen wrote:
| I've found it's quite doable if you just "type" out different
| words on a blank keyboard and then use where your fingers
| land as the label. If you type "animal" you then know the
| position of all the constituent letters. So all you need to
| do is type a sentence with all characters, like "the quick
| brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
|
| Interesting effect though. This reminds me that it's almost
| impossible to draw a bicycle from memory.
| https://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/04/can-you-draw-
| bicycle-f...
| tempestn wrote:
| Or even just type out the alphabet. But labeling it from
| left to right, top to bottom, would indeed be tricky once
| you got past 'qwerty'.
| discardable_dan wrote:
| Heck, touch-typing is so ingrained in my brain that I sometimes
| recall how to type a word to remember how to spell it. For
| longer words I don't write by hand very often, it's simply
| easier for me to remember and transliterate the muscle memory.
| superduperycomb wrote:
| I can type far more words than i can spell
| blobbers wrote:
| How long until this is used in interrogations of criminals...
| citilife wrote:
| I've worked alongside a group researching similar techniques, it
| doesn't actually need to be implants -
| http://bretl.csl.illinois.edu/projects
|
| I think we were able to get up to something like 20 characters
| per minute, but it was largely UX design. You can go from 6 -> 20
| characters. I wouldn't be surprised if the implants improve the
| speed, but UX could probably play an equally large impact.
| hadsed wrote:
| i think i believe that. what is the easiest thought abstraction
| that can be captured by our sensors? well the abstraction is
| largely defined by the UI. i like to think of it like language.
| UI components (words) come together to enable complex actions
| (sentences or thoughts). it evokes questions, like what
| language does the brain speak in certain contexts for certain
| outputs? that's gonna be interesting to follow. what if we all
| think _super_ differently and that makes it hard? i can 't
| imagine why, but i don't have a background in real brains
|
| it may be that our current "AI" tools might be helpful--they're
| really good at composing "languages" for tying together
| different types of data. seems that tying noisy brain sensors
| data to our English alphabet might be an example of that.
| yosito wrote:
| 90 characters per minute is quite slow. I would expect they could
| get faster by having the user imagine moving a cursor over an
| onscreen swipe keyboard.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| I suggest you to watch the video
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Kiro wrote:
| They address this in both the article and the video. Their
| previous version was exactly that and this is twice as fast.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I wonder if this is capable of interpreting more complex
| characters? I wonder if a patient who previously was able to
| write in simplified Chinese, for example, might be able to write
| faster?
| tommi wrote:
| I love it how we can do this complex stuff. Though being a 90s
| kid, I imagine doing a T9 based brain-computer interface would be
| easier and faster.
| warent wrote:
| This is amazing! I'm assuming when they say "imagining" they mean
| visualizing it as a mind picture? I wonder how this works for
| folks with aphantasia. Do you imagine the motor action of
| writing? Can a paralyzed person still do that?
| schoen wrote:
| (Should be characters rather than words.) Very impressive; I
| wonder if future versions will eventually even exceed the speed
| of speech or typing.
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| You're reminding me of the augmented 16 fingered prosthetic
| hands from Ghost in The Shell, much safer than connecting your
| cyberbrain to a random computer system.
|
| I imagine a future version of this technology would move beyond
| converting mental keystrokes into input and instead work on
| more abstract ideas. Imagine if your IDE could auto-generate
| certain design patterns as you think about them, instead of
| forcing you to manually type them out.
| Engineering-MD wrote:
| Yes I just came to put an addendum on for characters not words.
| But as you said very very impressive. This could massively
| improve patient's quality of life by being able to communicate
| much quicker
| _Microft wrote:
| _This artifical interactive knowledge entity wants access to
| your attention and emotional state. Think "Accept" to allow
| permanent access [*]. Think "More info" to instantly know our
| privacy policy._
|
| This is fine.
|
| _[*] We will add your technological and biological
| distinctiveness to our own._
| arunkant wrote:
| Resistance Is Futile
| SamBam wrote:
| _In the same way that irreversible actions on legacy keyboard
| systems are confirmed by typing in a series of words,
| MentalKeyboard will require you to think of a complex
| thought._
|
| _Delete all funds from your bank account? To confirm, think
| of a polka-dotted elephant. Otherwise, just think of anything
| else._
| taneq wrote:
| > To confirm, think of a polka-dotted elephant.
|
| You monster! :D
| dasyatidprime wrote:
| You would want to offer a specific something else for the
| user's executive function to latch onto immediately, even
| if you continue to interpret anything other than the narrow
| confirmation pattern as "cancel", just so there isn't only
| one immediate, recent attractor for "think of something".
| gus_massa wrote:
| I'm not sure if you did it on purpose, but when I read:
|
| > _To confirm, think of a polka-dotted elephant._
|
| I immediately though: How does a polka-dotted elephant look
| like???
|
| I guess my bank account is blank now :( .
| jwuphysics wrote:
| This would pose a different kind of problem for people
| with aphantasia.
| xtorol wrote:
| "I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something I
| loved from my childhood, something that could never, ever
| possibly destroy us: Mr. Stay-Puft."
| matz1 wrote:
| I think so and it probably will require some skills to fully
| utilize it where kids in the future will start learning to use
| it from the early age.
|
| I image this is how I probably will become 'obsolete' in
| regards of technology just like my parent can't catch up with
| todays technology.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| That is seriously creepy. And I REALLY hope if they make it into
| a product that you can turn it off when you are asleep because I
| know I'm not the only one who dreams about writing code sometimes
| and I don't want find myself debugging something I dreamed about
| the previous night with only a vague memory of having written it.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I'd quite like to get dream recordings to be honest, though not
| to the point of wanting to have an implant just for that
| purpose.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Why does this article not mention the names or institutions of
| the authors?
| _rpd wrote:
| > 200 electrodes in the participant's premotor cortex
|
| Is finding the right neurons just luck? Does the person somehow
| adapt to the interface?
| djoshea wrote:
| Not really. Lots of neurons in this part of the brain modulate
| their activity to movement in heterogeneous ways. The algorithm
| details vary, but at some level you're trying to find a 2d x/y
| velocity signal encoded in the 200d neural signals. This
| decoder is a bit more sophisticated (using deep learning style
| approaches), but a Kalman filter was state of the art for a
| long time.
|
| For the adaptation, there's a rich literature of
| neuroscientists in this field studying how the participant
| adapts to the control characteristics of the decoder, and how
| the decoding algorithm can be designed to adapt after seeing
| more data during use. Here's one paper if you're interested
| http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~liam/research/pubs/merel-fox-c...
| kbenson wrote:
| Hmm, since they are having someone imagine writing a character
| our and using recognition on it, I wonder if there's gains to be
| had to switching to a simplified writing, like Palm did for their
| PDAs in the past with Graffiti.[1]
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_(Palm_OS)
| melling wrote:
| With autocompletion and advanced prediction 90 characters a
| minute could be effectively much more.
|
| https://www.tabnine.com/
| DonHopkins wrote:
| I'd love a neural interface to Dasher, which adaptively
| learns as you use it which letter combinations are the most
| popular, and adjusts over time to make it easier and faster
| to input common text.
|
| It would be wonderful integrated with a context and language
| sensitive IDE.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasher_(software)
|
| https://github.com/dasher-project
|
| http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/
|
| >To make the interface efficient, we use the predictions of a
| language model to determine how much of the world is devoted
| to each piece of text. Probable pieces of text are given more
| space, so they are quick and easy to select. Improbable
| pieces of text (for example, text with spelling mistakes) are
| given less space, so they are harder to write. The language
| model learns all the time: if you use a novel word once, it
| is easier to write next time. [...]
|
| >Imagine a library containing all possible books, ordered
| alphabetically on a single shelf. Books in which the first
| letter is "a" are at the left hand side. Books in which the
| first letter is "z" are at the right. In picture (i) below,
| the shelf is shown vertically with "left" (a) at the top and
| "right" (z) at the bottom. The first book in the "a" section
| reads "aaaaaaaaaaaa..."; somewhere to its right are books
| that start "all good things must come to an end..."; a tiny
| bit further to the right are books that start "all good
| things must come to an enema...". [...]
|
| >.... This is exactly how Dasher works, except for one
| crucial point: we alter the SIZE of the shelf space devoted
| to each book in proportion to the probability of the
| corresponding text. For example, not very many books start
| with an "x", so we devote less space to "x..." books, and
| more to the more plausible books, thus making it easier to
| find books that contain probable text.
|
| The classic Google Tech Talk by the late David MacKay, the
| inventor of Dasher:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpOxbesRNBc&ab_channel=Googl.
| ..
|
| It's based on the concept of concept of arithmetic coding
| from information theory.
|
| http://www.inference.org.uk/mackay/dasher/
|
| Ada Majorek, who has ALS, uses it with a Headmouse to program
| (and worked on developing a new open source version of
| Dasher) and communicate in multiple languages:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvHQ83pMLQQ&ab_channel=Dashe.
| ..
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Title should be updated to 90 characters per minute. 90 wpm would
| be legitimately fast.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| What is typical writing speed in terms of characters per
| minute? Maybe the next version could use a former touch typist
| and ask them to visualize typing on a keyboard.
| grogenaut wrote:
| average english word is < 8 chars, so call it 8, and that
| gives you 10 WPM. Sent from a plane, I'm not doing more
| research than this.
| [deleted]
| etrautmann wrote:
| 90 characters per minute is still "legitimately fast" for
| someone who cannot type otherwise!
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Right, but 90 wpm would be faster than most people could ever
| do on a conventional keyboard; it's a whole other level.
| qwertox wrote:
| It would be interesting to see how people compare in speed,
| assuming that the technology itself is not a bottleneck.
|
| We could directly measure how fast a child thinks, or a CEO
| vs. a homeless.
|
| Eventually we would be able to pinpoint mental problems by
| measuring the time it takes to think about a certain topic,
| check if the mind "locks up" for a couple of seconds on a
| seemingly unrelated topic which got triggered by the
| context the mind was thinking about. We could pinpoint the
| unrelated topic and have a base for a psychotherapy which
| could be more accurate than by just talking around in order
| to get to know the patient.
|
| Let's say a group of 10 have to think out the ordering
| process at a Starbucks where every step has been provided
| by a list. An average of 20 seconds is used to do this +- 5
| seconds. If there is an outlier, one could start to dig
| deeper into what exactly is making the mind to wander off.
| Multiple tests in different scenarios could then decide if
| the outlier is a slow thinker in general, or if it is a
| certain thing which triggers this wandering off.
| lazysheepherd wrote:
| Just a trivia perhaps, but WPM is _exactly_ 5 times faster than
| CPM. "the definition of each "word" is often standardized to be
| five characters or keystrokes long in English" [1]
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| So this implant is 18 wpm, then - a bit slower than hunt-and-
| peck typing (which is ~27 wpm), but still very workable.
| dang wrote:
| The title shouldn't have added that bit in the first place ("
| _Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or
| linkbait; don 't editorialize._" [1]) so we've taken it out.
| The headline is just fine without it.
|
| (Submitted title was "Neural implant lets paralyzed person type
| by imagining writing [90wpm]")
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| whimsicalism wrote:
| 90 wpm and I would be wanting to get one myself!
| buildbot wrote:
| Yeah a 90wpm interface to a computer mentally would be
| incredible. Combine that with something like GPT3, use it to
| do natural language command line processing... If anyone is
| working on this I'd pay like 5k for a non invasive solution!
| ;)
| swader999 wrote:
| If it helped me think at 90 wpm that'd be even better.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Having followed the development and trials of various types of
| brain implants, the realities and side-effects of living with
| brain implants can be more than most bargained for. Deep brain
| stimulation implants (which this isn't) in particular can be
| incredibly nasty even for those for whom implants are a last
| resort.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Like what? Infection?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Infection is one aspect. Another aspect is the battery system
| that powers the implant, they're usually implanted in the
| chest with a wire that goes up the neck to the skull. There
| was a case[1] where tension developed over that wire, leading
| to pain, immobility and destruction of the connection in
| brain tissue:
|
| > _Steve had the surgery at Stanford, in November, 2012.
| After the surgery, he had "severe cognitive decline" and a
| slew of physiological adversities. "The leads [wires] were 18
| inches longer than they needed to be, so they coiled it up in
| the chest and at the top of the head; I could feel them
| externally," he says. "And the leads were too tight. I could
| move my ear and my chest would move, too," he says of a
| condition called "bowstringing," whereby scar tissue
| encapsulates the wires (partly from the body's natural
| response to foreign material), which has been documented in
| DBS cases and can cause permanent complications. Steve also
| had many symptoms that were ultimately diagnosed as shoulder
| and jaw muscle atrophy, spinal accessory nerve palsy and
| occipital nerve palsy. He reported all adverse effects
| immediately and continuously throughout the first year of the
| study, but the trial doctors continually told him that they'd
| never heard of such symptoms with DBS, even though nerve
| damage and DBS wire-related "hardware" complications were
| among the potential risks listed on the informed consent
| document._
|
| Because they're relatively experimental, it's almost
| impossible to find a doctor/surgeon/etc that will choose to
| work on you should you run into complications. If you have
| problems with the programming of the devices themselves,
| there isn't much you can do as a patient, and even
| specialists can't help you. The only people who can help you
| are those who developed the device. That can be a problem for
| a device that's meant to remain implanted until death.
| Removal is also a huge issue, because brain tissues grow on
| and around the implants. There are people who want their
| implants removed, but can't find a doctor who is willing to
| remove them because of the potential for brain injury and the
| resulting liability.
|
| They can also cause personality changes, suicidal behavior
| and even homicidal behavior[4]. There are documented cases of
| increased impulsivity and impaired executive function, which
| have led to pathological gambling and shopping. Breakdowns of
| relationships and the ability to work are also documented[3].
|
| Here's an article on the subject[1], and there are numerous
| studies that look into such effects, like this one[2] that
| aggregates dozens of studies.
|
| [1] https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/09/adverse-effects-
| perils-...
|
| [2] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2013.0
| 011...
|
| [3] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2013.0
| 011...
|
| [4]
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12152-010-9093-1
| etrautmann wrote:
| This is somewhat off-topic for this particular work.
|
| The advances demonstrated here are in the algorithm and
| approach, not in the interface hardware (Utah array).
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Yes, neural implants are invasive, dangerous, prone to side
| effects, and undesirable. It's just the first, and currently
| the only way to get the signal.
|
| Ideally, future generations will use a non-invasive sensor.
|
| If you can invent one with high enough resolution, you will
| change the world. But first, or simultaneously, the other
| components of the system will have to be invented.
|
| TFA is about decoding the ill-gotten signal. It's an impressive
| sign that our information processing technologies, and
| neuroanatomical understanding are already at the point where
| the system is viable.
|
| If you could complete development of the non-invasive smart hat
| by this time next year, the world will be a different place by
| 2025.
| Engineering-MD wrote:
| Neural implants ideally would be non invasive, with high
| spatial resolution and fast frequency/temporal resolution.
| The reality is that you can only choose two of these three. I
| don't see non invasive options being feasible with current
| technology. There is some good research into more
| biocompatible invasive options, but problems can take years
| to be found.
| lgeorget wrote:
| I'd like to see a followup on that body of research with Chinese.
| I wonder if we'd have lower, higher or just similar accuracy.
| Datenstrom wrote:
| It seems Vim may finally have a challenger for the title of
| editing text at the speed of thought at some point.
| chexx wrote:
| Interestingly the constraint of only being able to use a
| simplified alphabet would let Vim "supercharge" this tech.
|
| My assumption is that translating the thought "delete the
| current line that the cursor is on" to the actual action is
| still far away. And then expanding that to something like
| "delete the current line that the cursor is on and all the
| lines above it" might be even more difficult.
|
| But the equivalent operations in normal mode are "dd" and
| "dgg", this interfaces very nicely with the implant.
| ashton314 wrote:
| This is amazing. Think of how liberating implants like this will
| be to people with locked-in syndrome or with less-serious
| diseases!
|
| Personally I've struggled with some RSI. Fortunately I've figured
| out a good way to manage it, but the thought of loosing my
| ability to type terrifies me. I could see a mature version of
| this technology being safe and common enough to be an elective
| thing; then I wouldn't have to worry about hurting my hands!
| pioughd wrote:
| It's not 90 wpm it's 90 characters per minute. Big difference.
| Still awesome.
| dang wrote:
| Fixed now (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27135360).
| varispeed wrote:
| This is awesome, but also terrifying. The way the world is going,
| it is not hard to predict that in the future this kind of device
| will be used to tackle thought crime or "zap" you if you think of
| something government doesn't like.
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