Ctrl-labs CEO: We'll have neural interfaces in less than 5 years

It can be a bit difficult to wrap your brain around what exactly neural interface startup Ctrl-labs is doing with technology. That's ironic, given that Ctrl-labs wants to let your brain directly use technology by translating mental intent into action. We caught up with Ctrl-labs CEO Thomas Reardon at Web Summit 2019 earlier this month to understand exactly how the brain-machine interface works. Founded in 2015, Ctrl-labs is a New York-based startup developing a wristband that translates musculoneural signals into machine-interpretable commands. But not for long -- Facebook acquired Ctrl-labs in September 2019. The acquisition hasn't closed yet, so Reardon has not spoken to anyone at the social media giant since signing the agreement. He was, however, eager to tell us more about the neural interface technology so we could glean why Facebook (and the tech industry at large) is interested. In short, Ctrl-labs wants us to interact with technology not via a mouse, a keyboard, a touchscreen, our voice, or any other input we've adopted. Reardon and his team expect that in a few years we will be able to use individual neurons -- not thoughts -- to directly control technology. Reardon has said many times that his company is tackling the "mother of all machine learning problems."