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Facebook Inc. announced last Monday that it had agreed to buy a startup allowing users to control their computer with their brains – a long-time ambition of managing director Mark Zuckerberg.
The proposed acquisition of CTRL-Labs, a 4-year-old software and wristband company measuring neuron activity in a subject's arm, is expected to be in the range of $ 500 million to $ 1 billion. published reports.
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declined to comment on the price of the acquisition.
"Such technology could open up new creative possibilities and reinvent 19th century inventions in a 21st century world," said Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, vice president of AR / VR of Facebook, in a published article. on Facebook. "This is how our interactions in virtual reality and virtual reality can ever come out. It can change the way we connect. "
The acquisition will certainly draw the attention of Congress, especially after members met last week with Zuckerberg to voice concerns about Facebook's marketing potential and data privacy practices.
The social networking giant has been working for several years on a "direct interface to the brain". Creating its Secret Building 8 division, it could move technology-enhanced communication to a higher level – literally in the thought process of someone. One of the project's goals, told this reporter at the F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, in 2017, included technology that allows people to type 100 words a minute with their brains. "What if you could type directly from your brain … with the speed and flexibility of the voice and the confidentiality of the text?", Said Regina Dugan, Director of Building 8, during an interview.
CTRL-Labs, based in New York, will be part of the Facebook division Reality Labs, which designs a pair of hands-free augmented reality glasses. The company has raised tens of millions of dollars, including $ 28 million from Alphabet Inc.
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GV and Amazon.com Inc.
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Alexa funds earlier this year.
"Here's how it works: you have neurons in your spinal cord that send electrical signals to the muscles in your hand, asking them to move in a specific way, for example by clicking on a mouse or pressing a button." Bosworth writes. "The bracelet will decode these signals and translate them into a digital signal that your device can understand, allowing you to control your digital life. It records your intention so that you can share a photo with a friend by using an imperceptible movement or just to do it. "
Facebook's futuristic effort is one of many technological projects aimed at exploring the human brain. Tesla Inc.
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CEO Elon Musk, for example, founded Neuralink Corp., a private Silicon Valley company that would merge computers with brains to track artificial intelligence.
The timing chosen by Facebook's company, which caused shivers in the F8 crowd two years ago due to its possible ramifications, is likely to provoke the same reaction from federal lawmakers and states as well as privacy advocates who are already worried about the economic and cultural influence of the company. because it collects mountains of data from billions of loyal users.
The Federal Trade Commission is studying Facebook's and Amazon's business practices. The Department of Justice does the same with Apple Inc.
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and Google. The four companies showed a keen interest in the financial potential of mixed reality and artificial intelligence.
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