A 36-year-old patient known only as Pancho is the first person to try a ‘mind-reading’ brain implant that lets him “speak.” He was paralyzed from the neck down by a stroke at the age of 20, and the device has allowed him to communicate at around seven words per minute despite only being able to move his eyes.
After all that time, he had something important to tell the researchers…he hates hospital food. He also said he was thrilled with the device, which was pretty accurate; the computer only got about one in every 16 letters wrong.