Stanford scientists have created a brain implant that allows a man who is paralyzed to type up to 90 words per minute.
All he has to do is think of the words and the computer will type them out for him.
The team behind the implant published their findings in Nature this May but they have just presented their findings at WE Summit, a science conference hosted by Tencent, on Saturday.
There are different types of implants. Older ones rely on a person to move a cursor with their mind to the letters they want. But new ones allow a person to type by imagining themselves writing a word with their hand. A computer then figures out what the person is trying to say and displays it on the screen.
The team combined the neural implant system with an autocorrect function. This helped make sure that he typed fast and accurately, even faster than people who use keyboards.
They now claim that the man is now the world’s fastest mind typist.
The research is another step in our understanding of the brain and neuroscience. The team hope that it’s just the start of a big leap forwards in technology over the next few decades which should see the tech become safer and cheaper.
Published as “High-performance brain-to-text communication via handwriting” in Nature.
