Key points from article :
Peter Thiel has backed the firm called Blackrock Neurotech in a $10 million financing round.
It is working on brain-computer interface (BCI) devices, competing with Neuralink.
Targeting their products at people with limited movement and other disabilities.
Blackrock Neurotech claims that it has already put its devices into 28 patients, as well as primates and rodents.
Once implanted, electrodes record neuron activity, amplify the signal of thoughts, and send it to a computer.
Software on the computer then tries to interpret and turns that into commands.
"Neuralink’s device can record more brain cell activity than Blackrock’s BCIs," - Andrew Jackson, Professor at Newcastle University.
Neuralink and Blackrock Neurotech are working on wireless devices.
Blackrock Neurotech wants its devices to be distributed in the same way that pacemakers and cochlear implants are.
“I am confident that in less than 20 years’ time, we will all have a BCI,” - Christian Angermayer, Founder of Apeiron Investment Group.
