Facebook is in the final stages of acquiring CTRL Labs for a reported $1 billion. The start-up is developing an AI armband which tracks the movements of users' individual fingers by detecting electrical signals passing through the user’s wrist. Based on how the signal changes passing through the tendons and muscles of the arm their position can be determined, and machine learning is then applied to convert these position changes into finger poses. The technology is similar to what’s described in a patent application filed by Facebook earlier this year, and David Heaney speculates that the acquisition possibly stems from the fact that CTRL Labs were either able to solve problems that Facebook’s team wasn’t, or felt it was better served by combining their efforts by integrating its team into Facebook Reality Labs, which is currently the largest known VR research division in the world.