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Brain Implants Let Paralyzed People Type Nearly as Fast as Smartphone Users (singularityhub.com)
submitted 1 day ago by artifex@piefed.social to c/technology@beehaw.org
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The system learned to translate brain activity to physical intent after just 30 sentences. Typing speeds reached 22 words per minute with few errors, nearly matching speeds of able-bodied smartphone users.

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[-] apotheotic@beehaw.org 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

An awesome development no doubt, but, 22 wpm is ssslllloooow

Edit: to be clear, 22wpm is huge for people who were previously unable to type at all, or with any sort of speed. Just weird to call 22wpm "nearly as fast as smartphone users". (And I know, they're using smartphone users of that patticular age group as the metric, but the headline is dishonest by omission in this case)

[-] TehPers@beehaw.org 8 points 1 day ago

As someone with fat fingers and autocorrect disabled, I wish I had 22 wpm with high accuracy.

And before you suggest autocorrect, I use a lot of acronyms and jargon that autocorrect often fails at. It gets annoying enough that I'd rather just type stuff out myself.

[-] apotheotic@beehaw.org 2 points 1 day ago

Fair enough! I don't use autocorrect either, but I guess I don't have the same problem with my fingers that you're experiencing.

I just can't fathom it taking me nearly three seconds to type a word. I'd be surprised if the majority of words take me even one second to type.

[-] yakko@feddit.uk 3 points 1 day ago

I love to type fast, but I recognise it's not as valuable as typing something worth reading. I used to write long emails and it was never really worth a damn in the end. As for writing books, those aren't the kind of thing you should just firehose onto the page either.

[-] apotheotic@beehaw.org 2 points 1 day ago

Sure but we're not talking about what's being typed, rather how fast you can type it.

[-] yakko@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah but like... This is a post about people who couldn't type at all before. Even 22WPM is a massive quality of life boost, and all I'm saying is that even such a modest speed unlocks pretty much all of the contributory ability a strong typist has (and that slower isn't always worse).

[-] apotheotic@beehaw.org 3 points 1 day ago

Oh for sure! But them saying that 22wpm is "nearly as fast as smartphone users" is what I'm calling out. This is an enormous improvement for the people who it affects!

[-] Shellofbiomatter@lemmus.org 9 points 1 day ago

From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me.

[-] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Sounds better than swiping on iOS.

[-] GammaGames@beehaw.org 5 points 1 day ago

Few errors is better than current autocorrect, sign me up!

this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
76 points (98.7% liked)

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