Ideas, Inventions And Innovations
Mindwriting: Device Enables Paralyzed People to Text by Thought
Artificial intelligence, interpreting data from a device placed at the brain’s surface, enables people who are paralyzed or have severely impaired limb movement to communicate by text. Call it “mindwriting.”
The combination of mental effort and state-of-the-art technology have allowed a man with immobilized limbs to communicate by text at speeds rivaling those achieved by his able-bodied peers texting on a smartphone.
Stanford University investigators have coupled artificial-intelligence software with a device, called a brain-computer interface, implanted in the brain of a man with full-body paralysis. The software was able to decode information from the BCI to quickly convert the man’s thoughts about handwriting into text on a computer screen.
Call it mindwriting.
The combination of mental effort and state-of-the-art technology have allowed a man with immobilized limbs to communicate by text at speeds rivaling those achieved by his able-bodied peers texting on a smartphone.
Stanford University investigators have coupled artificial-intelligence software with a device, called a brain-computer interface, implanted in the brain of a man with full-body paralysis. The software was able to decode information from the BCI to quickly convert the man s thoughts about handwriting into text on a computer screen.
The man was able to write using this approach more than twice as quickly as he could using a previous method developed by the Stanford researchers, who reported those findings in 2017 in the journal eLife.
Newport Daily News
MIDDLETOWN Veterans over the age of 85 were mostly happy as they waited Saturday morning in car lines to get a dose of the COVID vaccine at the VA Clinic off West Main Road.
The VA personnel administered 200 shots in the arms of veterans at the clinic. A few of the veterans were younger than 85 because they have complicating risk factors such as being on dialysis, healthcare workers said.
“As soon as we get the vaccines, we put them in people’s arms,” said Larry Connell, director of the Veterans Affairs Providence Health Care System, who was in charge of the clinic. He is a retired U.S. Army colonel who served for 30 years before returning to Middletown, where he grew up.
By SEAN FLYNN | Newport Daily News, R.I. | Published: February 15, 2021
Stars and Stripes is making stories on the coronavirus pandemic available free of charge. See other free reports here. Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter here. Please support our journalism with a subscription. MIDDLETOWN, R.I. (Tribune News Service) Veterans over the age of 85 were mostly happy as they waited Saturday morning in car lines to get a dose of the COVID vaccine at the VA Clinic off West Main Road. The VA personnel administered 200 shots in the arms of veterans at the clinic. A few of the veterans were younger than 85 because they have complicating risk factors such as being on dialysis, healthcare workers said.