Sabi says its brain-reading beanie could type words from thoughts

In short: Sabi says it will release a beanie-style wearable by the end of the year that can turn a person’s silent, internal speech into typed words.

What happened

Sabi, a California-based startup, has come out of “stealth,” meaning it has been working quietly and is now talking publicly about its product. The company says it is building a brain-computer interface, or BCI, which is a way for your brain to send signals directly to a device.

Instead of an implanted chip, Sabi’s first product is a beanie, and it is also designing a baseball cap version. The goal is to let people type on a computer without speaking out loud or using their hands.

The beanie uses EEG, short for electroencephalography. This is a common method that uses small metal sensors on the scalp to pick up tiny electrical signals from the brain (like microphones pressed against a wall, trying to hear a conversation in the next room). Sabi says it plans to use far more sensors than typical EEG devices, around 70,000 to 100,000, to improve accuracy.

Sabi says its initial target is about 30 words per minute, and that it may improve as a person uses it more. The company also says it is training a “brain foundation model,” which it describes as a large AI system trained on brain data from many people, using about 100,000 hours of data from 100 volunteers.

Why it matters

If this works reliably, it could offer a new way to interact with computers, especially in places where talking is awkward or impossible. It also raises privacy questions, since brain signals could be some of the most personal data a person has. Sabi says it encrypts data when it is sent to the cloud and is consulting neurosecurity experts to review its systems.

Source: Wired