Dr. Eddie Chang

really separate.

But there is something about being able to actually see your expressions and to understand other forms of communication.

So another really important one is nonverbal expressions that you're making.

For example, if you have a quizzical look on your face, if I'm saying something not clear, that's a sign to me that I need to rephrase it or to say it in a different way or to slow down.

Facial expressions actually are a really important part of the way we speak.

And there's two things.

It's not just the expressions of like how you're feeling and perceiving what I'm saying, but it's also seeing my mouth move.

In your eyes, I actually see my mouth move and my jaw move in a particular way.

that actually allows you to hear those sounds better.

So having both the visual information but also the sounds go into your brain is going to improve the intelligibility, also make it more natural.

And the reason why we're also very interested in this idea of not just having text on a screen, but essentially a fully computer animated face like an avatar of

the person's speech movements and their facial expressions is going to be a more complete form of expression.

Now, you can imagine right now that might just be someone looking at a computer screen interpreting these signals, but I think the way things are going in the next couple of years, a lot more of our social interactions, more than even now, are going to move into this digital virtual space.

Of course, most people are thinking about what that means for most consumers,

But it also has really important implications for people who are disabled, right?

And how are they going to participate in that?

And so we're thinking really about for people like Pancho and other people who are paralyzed, what other forms of BCI can we do in order to help improve their ability to communicate?

So one is essentially building out more holistic avatars, you know, things that can improve

So do you envision a time not too long from now where instead of tweeting out something in text, my avatar will, I'll type it out, but my avatar will just say it?

That's what we're working on.