3 ms·
They're not transcribing it, so much as selecting the keys one would need to press in order to type the text. That is, the correct key lights up, and they move
by djoshea 10y ago
They're not transcribing it, so much as selecting the keys one would need to press in order to type the text. That is, the correct key lights up, and they move the cursor and mentally "click" to select it. This serves two purposes:
- WPM is a difficult metric to "game", since if they make a mistake they have to select the backspace key, and then select the correct key again.
- It's a proof of concept demonstration that a human (e.g. in the BrainGate[1] clinical trial) could use this prosthetic system to communicate in text. When a human were driving the system, the keys wouldn't light up; they'd just type freely.
[1] http://www.braingate.org/ http://www.braingate.org/
- bonoboTP 10y agoAh, I was also tricked by "transcribe"... This is why reading science articles is so much better when there is also a comment section (HN/Reddit etc). So many articles don't actually point out that is going on really.
- r_smart 10y agoI've pretty much stopped reading articles entirely. I'd rather click through to the study, read the abstract, then skim through looking for anything interesting or obviously wrong. Combine that w/a high quality comment site as you mention, and it's a much more informative process, and takes about the same amount of time.