Facebook Reportedly Spent More Than $500 Million to Buy a Mind-Reading Technology Startup

. . .The company, CTRL-Labs, makes a wristband that is said to decode electrical signals from your brain. By wearing the wristband, the company says, you’ll be able to control a computer using your thoughts.

“You have neurons in your spinal cord that send electrical signals to your hand muscles telling them to move in specific ways such as to click a mouse or press a button,” Facebook VP Andrew Bosworth said in a Facebook post announcing the acquisition. “The wristband will decode those signals and translate them into a digital signal your device can understand, empowering you with control over your digital life.”

Notably, Facebook isn’t really in the consumer electronics business (with the exception of its Portal smart camera device). Facebook is mostly in the ad sales business, and it uses data provided by its users to power that business. As such, the device described above is being received as yet another way for Facebook to gather user data. . .

This reaction was representative of most of the reactions to Bosworth’s tweet.

“Why would anyone want to give a company w/ FB’s business model knowing access to their spinal cord data?” another user responded. “How is that even an intuitive way to interact with a device? Given ya’ll’s privacy missteps, why shouldn’t the intuition be to instead avoid FB products as much as possible?” (Read more from “Facebook Reportedly Spent More Than $500 Million to Buy a Mind-Reading Technology Startup” HERE)

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