Facebook is developing a mind-reading system to let people communicate through their thoughts alone, its founder Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed.
Speaking at the firm’s F8 conference, Zuckerberg said engineers in a secretive unit were working to build interfaces between brains and computers.
“[We’re working on] direct brain interfaces that one day will let you communicate using only your mind,” the chief executive said.
The revelation confirms mounting speculation about the social networks’ plans for telepathic technology.
In January, Facebook started recruiting “neural imaging” and “brain interface” engineers at its mysterious Building 8.
Zuckerberg, who has previously said telepathy is the “ultimate communication technology”, admitted the system is still “pretty far out”.
Instead, he devoted the bulk of his Californian keynote yesterday (18 April) to augmented reality (AR), which he described as Facebook’s second act.
“We all know where we want this to get eventually,” Zuckerberg said. “We want glasses, or eventually contact lenses, that look and feel normal but that let us overlay all kinds of information and digital objects on top of the real world.”
In the meantime, developers will have to settle for a new Camera Effects Platform, which lets users build AR tools for Facebook’s in-app camera.
Zuckerberg promised F8 speakers would reveal more details about Building 8’s work on telepathic systems today (19 April).