Petal Technology
The Future is Telepathic

Today, our mission is to enable people and software to communicate telepathically,” begins Dan Schmitz, CEO of Petal Technology. The startup is pioneering ways for people to interact with their surroundings through software that responds to brainwave activity. Petal builds software that translates brainwaves into computer commands in real-time.

Their software makes brainwave data usable by formatting them according to their customer’s unique needs. For academics, data scientists, and neuroscience researchers, Petal provides raw data to enable machine learning and further analysis. For others, it’s easier and more convenient to receive the data after being preprocessed by Petal’s filtering and detection algorithms. That is, instead of receiving raw brainwave data, one would receive a simple metric such as “visual attention” with a value ranging from 0 to 100. Because of Petal’s quantification of the mind, new opportunities emerge in markets such as mental health services, gaming, accessibility, among many others. Petal is making available their growing library of these brainwave translation metrics.

Beyond brainwaves, Petal’s software can learn to recognize biometric gestures such as facial movements.

In fact, by training the software to recognize eyebrow twitches, one of their alpha testers was the first ever to synthesize DNA by moving his eyebrows. Due to a wrist injury caused by repetitive strain, he was unable to click a computer mouse for hours on end, and needed a hand-free way to interact with his software. Frustrated with voice-based interactions, foot switches, and other solutions, he used Petal’s technology to map his gestures to software commands. Empowered to use software without hands nor voice, Petal’s telepathic technology opens the door to better interaction in emerging markets such as augmented reality and the Internet of Things.

“We are accelerating toward a future in which we can control all of our things without touching or talking,” declares Schmitz. “Reach and speech will become extinct.”

In another exciting scenario, a team integrated the Petal Metrics API to visualize in real time the degree to which people’s brains were in sync. Three people with EEG wearable devices were analyzed simultaneously. This technology can be applied in brainstorming activities in enterprises, or comparing user engagement across people with millisecond precision.

“We want to make it as easy as possible to integrate neurotechnology into software products,” says Schmitz. Back in 2015, Dan started with off-the-shelf components and explored opportunities to improve the technology. He then met his co-founder digitally through a neuroscience forum. They worked on several personal projects and found that for those without an education in neuroscience, the learning curve would be too steep for mass adoption. Moreover, the software and hardware involved were difficult to use. They grew the team to include world-class software engineers and succeeded in simplifying the technology for end-users and commercialized it. “We made it practically effortless. With one software command, you can start interacting with your things telepathically,” states Schmitz.

Forging ahead, Petal Technology will continue to build its intellectual property portfolio through R&D, while commercially, the startup offers its software library of metrics. Schmitz shares an exciting vision of the future, “We exist to augment abilities - to make and give people superpowers. Telepathy is just the beginning.”