Facebook gives peek inside unit studying brain-to-text technology

Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks on stage during the annual Facebook F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, US, April 18, 2017. SAN JOSE, Calif.- Facebook Inc on Wednesday pulled aside the curtain on a secretive unit headed by a former chief of the Pentagon's research arm, disclosing that the social media company is studying ways for people to communicate by thought and touch. In charge of the unit is Regina Dugan, who led a similar group at Alphabet Inc's Google and was previously director of the US Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. Dugan told software developers at Facebook's annual F8 conference that the company was modeling Building 8 after DARPA, a government office founded in the 1950s that gave the world the internet and the miniaturized GPS receivers used in consumer devices. One example of Building 8's work so far, Dugan said, was an attempt to improve technology that allows people to type words using their minds.