Facebook has unveiled its wrist device and an augmented reality keyboard that would allow users to replace the mouse and keyboard in future hardware products.
The company’s Facebook Reality Labs division this week unveiled the prototype technologies in a virtual call with members of the media. The directors of the division spoke about technologies, while the videos of the projects were played for the public.
The wrist device is capable of reading neurological signals sent from users’ brains to the hands. Theoretically, he could read these signals to get an idea of what a user wants to do and to reproduce the action in a virtual or augmented reality environment.
“In fact, you have more of your wrist dedicated to controlling your wrist than any other part of your body, probably twice as many neurons that control your wrist and hand movement than is actually dedicated to your mouth for feeding and speech.” , said TR Reardon, director of research science at Facebook Reality Labs.
Researchers on Facebook have demonstrated actions of “force” in which a user could pinch their fingers in real life to hold and control virtual objects, far away, in augmented reality. The name of the action is a reference to the Star Wars franchise, where certain characters can use Force to control and move people or objects that are far from them.
In addition, the company demonstrated electromyographic bracelets that users could wear to type on any surface as if typed on a physical keyboard. Although there is no keyboard, EMG bracelets would record the intentions of a user’s fingerprints and note letters and words.
Facebook’s development of these technologies comes as the company prepares to launch its first smart glasses later this year. This device will be Ray-Ban glasses and will be launched in partnership with Luxottica.
Unlike smartphones, which rely on touch screens or Oculus virtual reality headsets, which rely on portable controllers, there is no obvious current input mechanism for smart glasses. That’s why Facebook is working on these projects.
Asked how soon these technologies could make their way to the public, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer said he was in the early stages of development.
“It’s hard to predict their timeline,” Schroepfer said. “How these things happen on the market, when they occur – are things we don’t have clear answers to. We are focusing on strengthening these technologies.”