Facebook shows off mind-reading technology it hopes to use one day with smart glass

March 18, 2021: Facebook has disclosed its mind-reading wrist device and an augmented reality keyboard that allows users to replace the mouse and keyboard in future hardware products.

The company’s Facebook Reality Labs division showed off the prototype technologies on a call with the media members virtually this week. Executives from the division talked about the technologies while videos of the projects were played for the audience.

The wrist device can read neurological signals sent from a users’ brain down to their hands. It could theoretically read these signals to get a sense of what a user wants to do and replicate the action in a virtual reality environment.

“You have more of your brain that controls your wrist, twice as many neurons controlling your wrist and the movement of your hands than is dedicated to your mouth for feeding and speech,” said TR Reardon, director of research science at Facebook Reality Labs.

The Facebook researchers demonstrated “force” actions where a user could pinch with their fingers in real life to hold and control virtual, far-away objects in augmented reality.

Additionally, the company demonstrated electromyography wristbands that users could wear to type on any surface as though they were typing on a physical keyboard. Though there’s no keyboard, the EMG wristbands would register a user’s finger strokes’ intentions and jot down the letters and words.

Facebook’s development of these technologies comes as the company prepares to release its first smart-glasses later this year. That device will be Ray-Ban glasses and will be released in partnership with Luxottica.

There is no obvious input mechanism for smart glasses, unlike smartphones, which rely on touchscreens, or Oculus virtual reality headsets, which rely on handheld controllers. That is why Facebook is working on these projects.

Asked how soon these technologies may make their way to the public, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer said they are in the early stages of development.