Imagine typing on your laptop or scrolling on your phone without moving your hands at all. For a long time we have wondered about a future where we can control things just by our thoughts. While Elon Musk’s Neuralink has turned this into reality, it requires you to implant actual chips inside your brain, something that would be a hassle to say the least. And now, a startup seems to have found a way where you may be able to do this by just wearing a beanie or a cap. But is this even possible?
California-based startup Sabi is developing a beanie that it claims will turn your thoughts into actual text that can be displayed on a computer screen. And this startup is backed by early OpenAI investor, Vinod Khosla. Sabi was co-founded by Rahul Chhabra, who graduated from BITS Pilani, in Rajasthan. Rahul told Wired that the company was also working on a basketball cap version.
A beanie that can read your mind, is it real?
Now, this may sound like science fiction, a hat that can read thoughts. But according to Sabi, it will use technology similar to Musk’s Neuralink. This Sabi beanie will use brain-computer interface (BCI) chips, just like Neuralink, to act as a medium that connects your brain to devices like computers. But while Neuralink needs this BCI chip to be implanted inside your brain via surgery, Sabi will place it inside headwear, like beanies or caps, making it easier for everyone to use.
Vinod Khosla told Wired, “If you’re going to have a billion people use BCI for access to their computers every day, it can’t be invasive.”
Sabi says that it uses electroencephalography (EEG) to record the brain’s electrical activity through metal disks placed on the scalp. But there is a problem. The signals from your brain may dampen as the sensors will need to listen through layers of bones and skin.
To counter this, Sabi claims that it uses a far higher number of sensors inside the beanie, ranging from 70,000 to 100,000. Most EEG devices today usually have a dozen to a few hundred sensors. So, in theory, the math checks out.
What can you do with this beanie?
According to the company, users will be able to convert their thoughts into text. That is, when you want to type a document, you just need to think and the beanie turns everything into text on screen.
Sabi says that the initial typing speed will be around 30 words per minute, which is actually slower than the speed of most of us. But the startup says it can increase over time once you start using it.
Do note that Neuralink at its current state can do a lot more than typing. For example, users of Neuralink have shared clips of playing games on their laptops by just using their thoughts.
Sabi claims that it is creating a large AI model to understand human thoughts. This model is trained on neural data collected from 100 volunteers, totalling 100,000 hours of brain data. It also states that the data from the device will be kept private.
Can you buy it?
As per Sabi, the product will likely be launched by the end of this year. The company has not revealed the pricing of the product yet. Though you can join the waitlist via its website.
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