5 ms·
True, but many people weigh the convenience by the number of uses. In that case, 0.0001 * 1 million >> 1.0 * 100
by 781 7y ago
True, but many people weigh the convenience by the number of uses.
In that case, 0.0001 * 1 million >> 1.0 * 100
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y agoAre there really that many people willing to have electrodes implanted in their brain just to... type on their phone!?
- solarkraft 7y agoHonestly, for a few thousand Euros, if it worked really well (and was a well supported product software wise, with open APIs) ... I might do it - And I do think that while it wouldn't be everyone, significantly many people willing to do it could be found.
- notahacker 7y agoOnly on Hacker News could people's main concern about whether to have invasive surgery to put electrodes on the surface of the speech centres of the brain be ensuring the APIs of the software it transmits messages to are open!
- Dylan16807 7y agoNot right now, but imagine if the level of invasiveness/danger was on the same level as a birth control implant, or botox, or lasik. I've had surgery to remove drainage tubes from my eardrums just because they were being inconvenient. I'd rather put up with that in exchange for being able to do 150wpm hands-free.
- stubish 7y agoWhat are you going to do with your hands while you are concentrating on your writing? They are going to be dangling there, useless for nothing except reflex actions like picking your nose or driving your car (!). I already have attached devices that let me enter text faster than I can think it. I think the tech only gets interesting for the handy-capable when it goes beyond words, capturing images or sounds as you imagine them, and that is a long way of.
- Dylan16807 7y agoI might be holding my phone, I might just not be near a keyboard, I might be controlling a video game and use it for extra input... And while I can type sentences pretty fast, sometimes I get bogged down with things like code and entering special characters and being able to subvocalize a single syllable to activate macros would be pretty nice. (Yes I know you could do that without a brain interface, but the point is that hands are limited.) Edit: why does this comment get a downvote?
- stubish 7y agoThese use cases are all great for speech recognition, which is decades ahead of brain interfaces and less invasive (and just as quiet if you want by sub-vocalizing into a throat mike). Again, not particularly interesting to most of us but very interesting to people with various disabilities.
- OkGoDoIt 7y agoI'm looking forward to the day that a technology like this is safe or simple enough for widespread commercial use. I would be concerned about the safety of brain surgery, but lots of people get lasik which uses lasers to cut your eyes, which in my head is much scarier. Hopefully someday this could be a fairly routine procedure.
- umeshunni 7y agoIf this was consumer-grade technology, you wouldn't need to type on your phone, you could simply communicate with others directly like telepathy.
- gknoy 7y agoI think Star Trek II put it well, in that the needs of the many are not always more important than the needs of the few.
- kuschku 7y agoI think you mean Star Trek III: The Search for Spock? :)
- gknoy 7y agoYou're right - I had mis-remembered it. The scene I was thinking of was the one near the end of Wrath of Khan where Spock and Kirk are discussing sacrifice, but that's not where the quote is from. I'll blame it on the scene in II being so much more memorable. ;)