In Depth: After Brain-Computer Tech Breakthroughs, the Next Challenge Is Bringing It to Market

In January, a Shanghai firm announced a breakthrough in the technology that allows the human brain to communicate directly with computers — it had achieved real-time decoding of the Chinese language from brain signals.

NeuroXess implanted a brain-computer interface (BCI) device into a brain cancer patient who also has epilepsy. The patient was asked to think of words and phrases in the Chinese language, and the device was able to correctly decode 71% of the 147 most commonly used Chinese syllables, taking just a tenth of a second to decode each Chinese character.