Amazing maybe, but not really news. Monkeys could pilot the Mercury capsule, too. With several months of intense training, you can make them do a lot of tasks involving pattern recognition. Reliable brain-sensing, on the other hand, is news.
Since people don't seem to get the reference: "Mercury astronauts are passengers, not pilots" was a prejudice against the budding manned space program, spread by among others Chuck Yeager. It seemed to hurt their ego that even a monkey could do it (…after months of training, which included electroshock therapy).
As someone else in the comments pointed out, they didn't transcribe it by reading it. The right letter to type was lit up on the screen. (The article mentions this, but doesn't emphasize it too well.)