Is the future of works inside a microchip implant that’s smaller than a dime? Brown University researchers say that a microchip brain implant can allow humans to type without the help of a keyboard. The microchip implanted in the brain captures signals linked with handwriting and then turns these signals into texts that can display on your laptop/computer screen in real-time.

Like something out of a sci-fi movie, all you need is to think about the hand movements that help produce written letters, and the technology will make it a reality. More importantly, this tech can potentially help people who’ve got paralysis communicate better. The person testing this technology had the ability to type about 90 characters per minute.

Dr. Leigh Hochberg claimed that BrainGate consortium’s main mission was to help restore intuitive, rapid communication for those individuals with severe motor and speech impairments. He said that the participant’s demonstration of accurate, fast neural decoding of hand movements marked an exciting new chapter in the neurotechnology industry.

Coming up with faster ways to communicate

The fine-tuning of this piece of technology has taken several years now. Earlier models relied on individuals clicking and pointing to letters on virtual keyboards. However, these people could only come up with around 40 to 45 characters per minute.

Stanford University’s Dr. Frank Willett said that they wanted to come up with new ways that would allow people to communicate both faster and more efficiently. He said that this system uses intracortical electrodes to tap into the neural activity recorded. This technology was tested on a 65-year-old spinal cord injury victim that was paralyzed from the neck down. It proved a success.