This New York based four year old start-up is opening new doors to the advancements in augmented reality. With a proud list of investors under its umbrella, CTRL-Labs will soon be a crucial part of our lives. As the AI technology grows to new bounds CTRL-Labs’ Brain-machine interaction might just be the future where we will belong. CTRL-labs is pioneering the development of non-invasive neural interfaces that reimagine how humans and machines collaborate.
Reportedly, this company will soon be in the list of Facebook acquired companies. Facebook has agreed to pay between $500 million and $1 billion, according to people familiar with the deal. Facebook has been a powerful investor when it comes to building up potential for resourceful start-ups. CTRL-Labs is currently working on a project that’ll let people control a digital avatar using only their thoughts. The company was founded in 2015 and it has since raised $67 million in venture capital.
Regarding the company’s further plans on its technology, Thomas Reardon, CEO of CTRL-Labs commented, “Your hands could be in your pocket, behind you. It’s the intention [to move], not the movement” itself that controls the avatar.” Using CTRL-Labs’ wristband prototype required intense concentration, but not actual muscle movement. CEO Thomas Reardon, left, led development of the Internet Explorer browser before co-founding CTRL-Labs in 2015.
Bridging the gap between human-machine interaction is what the start-up has aimed at. Facebook is basically acquiring a company that makes a wristband capable of transmitting electrical signals from the brain into computer input. Just like Thomas has said, it’s the intention to move, not the actual movement. This neural network interface might soon be a crucial part of augmented reality devices. Imagine controlling your device with simply you thoughts. Nevertheless, it will obviously make the users lazier but for what it’s worth, the wheel of technology remains moving in the right direction.
The deal, which is worth around $1 billion, is the most substantial acquisition Facebook has made in the last half decade, since it acquired virtual reality company Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion. It also marks a substantial increase in investment in Facebook’s growing hardware ambitions, as the CTRL-Labs tech will be put to use in future augmented and virtual reality projects at the social network. Clearly Facebook is trying to build new ways to interact with computers, including neural interfaces.
Bosworth, head of AR & VR at Facebook says CTRL-Labs, which was co-founded by Internet Explorer creator and neuroscientist Thomas Reardon, “will be joining our Facebook Reality Labs team where we hope to build this kind of technology, at scale, and get it into consumer products faster.”
“Technology like this has the potential to open up new creative possibilities and reimagine 19th century inventions in a 21st century world,” Bosworth writes. “This is how our interactions in VR and AR can one day look. It can change the way we connect.”
Just last week, it was reported that Facebook is working on 2 different models of AR glasses, one like Snap Spectacles and another ,a standalone Google Glass-style device, that are prime candidates for the kind of interface tech CTRL-Labs has developed.
Thus, Facebook acquiring CTRL-Labs is a conclusive evidence of the company’s firm promise on bringing futuristic artificial intelligence and neural network interface merged with augmented reality.
Back in the days, Facebook had invested on its Building 8 initiative, an experimental lab modeled after Google’s X division that was briefly run by former DARPA director Regina Dugan. Unfortunately that project had to be shut down and it’s sub-projects were divided amongst other divisions. On acquisition of CTRL-Labs , Facebook might just reintroduce themselves in this domain of futuristic technology.
