Technology

That was my first thought. Dude that had the surgery seeing this and just thinking,"What the fuck, man?"

While there are several ways to approach direct brain communication, they all have their benefits and drawbacks. Indirect methods, like this one, are much safer. But direct implantations, while riskier to get going, have the potential for near unlimited speed (both in bandwidth as well as reaction time).

The latter definitely will have more benefits in the long run.

Does that mean I'd want one in my head right now? Absolutely not. But if I were a unable to control most of my appendages, I'd definitely consider it.

No, it appears to be an external headset, although it was noted that people wearing it looked like they had head injuries, but they are working on improving it so that it is less visible.

No dirty thoughts! No dirty thoughts!

IIRC, when you think about words, you also emit weak signals to your face like if you were actually pronouncing those words, but too weak to actually activate your muscles..

This device would pick up those signals.

EDIT: not saying this thing works, but the principle is valid.

From the project's page:

The wearable system captures peripheral neural signals when internal speech articulators are volitionally and neurologically activated, during a user's internal articulation of words.

It doesn't capture the central signal, but peripheral, most likely from the nerves running around your face and your neck used to produce speech.

it's the same bs as facebooks "brain armband" which just picks up signals from muscle activity and not really from the brain. but because the brain is triggering those signals they call it "brain interface". it's just bs.