In November, a young man named Noland Arbaugh announced he’d be livestreaming from his home for three days straight. His broadcast was in some ways typical fare: a backyard tour, video games, meet mom.
The difference is that Arbaugh, who is paralyzed, has thin electrode-studded wires installed in his brain, which he used to move a computer mouse on a screen, click menus, and play chess. The implant, called N1, was installed last year by neurosurgeons working with Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-interface company.
Arbaugh’s livestream is an indicator that Neuralink is a whole lot closer to creating a plug-and-play experience that can restore people’s daily ability to roam the web and play games, giving them what the company has called “digital freedom.”
But this is not yet a commercial product. The current studies are small-scale—they are true experiments, explorations of how the device works and how it can be improved. Read on for our analysis of what to expect from the company in 2025.
—Antonio Regalado
Meta’s new AI model can translate speech from more than 100 languages
What’s new: Meta has released a new AI model that can translate speech from 101 different languages. It represents a step toward real-time, simultaneous interpretation, where words are translated as soon as they come out of someone’s mouth.