Valve CEO Gabe Newell’s Neuralink competitor is expecting its first brain chip this year

[Sieg67]

https://www.theverge.com/news/673938/gabe-newell-valve-founder-brain-computer-interface-first-chip-starfish

 

 

Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell, the company behind Half-Life and DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike and preeminent PC game distribution platform Steam, has long toyed with the idea that your brain should be more connected to your PC. It began over a decade ago with in-house psychologists studying people’s biological responses to video games; Valve once considered earlobe monitors for its first VR headset. The company publicly explored the idea of brain-computer interfaces for gaming at GDC in 2019.

But Newell decided to spin off the idea. That same year, he quietly incorporated a new brain-computer interface startup, Starfish Neuroscience — which has now revealed plans to produce its very first brain chip later this year.

Starfish’s first blog post, spotted by Valve watcher Brad Lynch, makes it clear we’re not talking about a complete implant yet. This bit is the custom “electrophysiology” chip designed to record brain activity (like how Neuralink can “read your mind” so patients can interact with computers) and stimulate the brain (for disease therapy), but Starfish isn’t claiming it’s already built the systems to power it or the bits to stick it into a person’s head.

“We anticipate our first chips arriving in late 2025 and we are interested in finding collaborators for whom such a chip would open new and exciting avenues,” writes Starfish neuroengineer Nate Cermak (bolding theirs), suggesting that Starfish might wind up partnering with other companies for wireless power or even the final brain implant.

But the goal, writes Starfish, is a smaller and less invasive implant than the competition, one that can “enable simultaneous access to multiple brain regions” instead of just one site, and one that doesn’t require a battery. Using just 1.1 milliwatts during “normal recording,” Starfish says it can work with wireless power transmission instead.

Here’s the chip’s current spec sheet:

• Low power: 1.1 mW total power consumption during normal recording
• Physically small: 2 x 4mm (0.3mm pitch BGA)
• Capable of both recording (spikes and LFP) & stimulation (biphasic pulses)
• 32 electrode sites, 16 simultaneous recording channels at 18.75kHz
• 1 current source for stimulating on arbitrary pairs of electrodes
• Onboard impedance monitoring and stim voltage transient measurement
• Digital onboard data processing and spike detection allows the device to operate via low-bandwidth wireless interfaces.
• Fabricated in TSMC 55nm process

Neuralink’s N1, for comparison, has 1,024 electrodes across its 64 brain-implanted threads, a chip that consumed around 6 milliwatts as of 2019, a battery that periodically needs wireless charging, and the full implant (again, not just the chip) is around 23mm wide and 8mm thick. The Elon Musk-led company has reportedly already implanted it in three humans; while some of the threads did detach from the first patient’s brain, he still has functionality and has been giving interviews.

Starfish says it could be important to connect to multiple parts of the brain simultaneously, instead of just one region, to address issues like Parkinson’s disease. “there is increasing evidence that a number of neurological disorders involve circuit-level dysfunction, in which the interactions between brain regions may be misregulated,” Cermak writes.

In addition to multiple simultaneous brain implants, the company’s updated website says it’s working on a “precision hyperthermia device” to destroy tumors with targeted heat, and a brain-reading, robotically guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) system for addressing neurological conditions like bipolar disorder and depression.

In case you’re wondering how any of this might make its way back to gaming, I’ll leave you with Valve’s talk from GDC 2019 about brain-computer interfaces.

[katt_goddess]

Calling it 'Starfish' just auto-pilots MY brain to think about Starro with his mind control. 

And Peter Capaldi being a creeper. 

[Dark_Cloud_Overhead]

Only kind of chips I like are the kind you can dip.

[PenguinBoss]

I guess that's what he's doing instead of making games.

[Sieg67]

7 hours ago, PenguinBoss said:

I guess that's what he's doing instead of making games.

That chip is how we're going to play HL:3.

[SwimOdin]

What could go wrong with surgically installing first-gen hardware into one’s body? I’m sure it will be fine.

[1pooh4u]

I recently started watching Black Mirror again but mostly for the first time. I’m gonna hafta say nope 

[Sieg67]

49 minutes ago, 1pooh4u said:

I recently started watching Black Mirror again but mostly for the first time. I’m gonna hafta say nope 

I mean, as long as he doesn't leave a pile of dead test monkeys.

[1pooh4u]

4 minutes ago, Sieg67 said:

I mean, as long as he doesn't leave a pile of dead test monkeys.

No monkeys. Dead humans are ok though 

[katt_goddess]

9 hours ago, SwimOdin said:

What could go wrong with surgically installing first-gen hardware into one’s body? I’m sure it will be fine.

Totally fine! First gens are ALWAYS the best of the best. 

For the feti of the boards, this is what a first gen cell phone looked like. Over 2 pounds of battery-eating bullshit. Practically needed its own damn backpack to go anywhere. 

[SwimOdin]

19 minutes ago, katt_goddess said:

Totally fine! First gens are ALWAYS the best of the best. 

For the feti of the boards, this is what a first gen cell phone looked like. Over 2 pounds of battery-eating bullshit. Practically needed its own damn backpack to go anywhere. 

We had a “car phone” in the early 90s for some fucking reason. I don’t know if we ever even used it because minutes were expensive. I gotta ask my parents why they had that shit.

[Top Gun]

I mean someone's gotta be a guinea pig, so long as it's not me. I want those GITS cyberbrains already. 

[Doom Metal Alchemist]

Implanting brain chips just to CONNECT TO THE INTERNET and experience VR, what could possibly go wrong.

[Dark_Cloud_Overhead]

9 hours ago, Doom Metal Alchemist said:

Implanting brain chips just to CONNECT TO THE INTERNET and experience VR, what could possibly go wrong.