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There are some fascinating notes about cochlear implants and MRI's at http://www.cochlear.com/wps/wc.... The part about "If the cochlear implant’s magnet is in place, it must be removed surgically before the recipient undergoes an MRI procedure." seems fairly frightening.

In the comics and movies, the cyborgs had super strength, could run fast, maybe shoot lasers out of their frickin' eyes, and so on.

Well, currently, even the best artificial limbs are a poor substitute for the genuine article. People get artificial limbs because they have lost their natural limbs, and have no other choice -- we do not hate or shun these people any more than we hate or shun people with any other disability. However, if artificial limbs become far superior to natural limbs, people will be able to choose whether they want their (perfectly healthy) natural limbs removed in favor of mechanical ones. At that point you will certainly have fear and loathing between the people who undergo the procedure (the superior beings) and the people who don't (the all-natural people).

I have a friend who would qualify as a "cyborg". He's hearing-impaired and has a Cochlear Implant. Social-wise, it's kind of a mixed bag. On one side of the coin, people in general are fascinated by the prospect of restoring hearing that was lost and the very idea of having a biological implant in his head. On the other side, however, the Deaf community generally shuns them as their equivalent of "tools of Satan."

I think that you're always going to have people that favor the "natural" over the man-made, even to the point where they're completely separated from society (think about how we talk about the Amish)

Hearing may actually be harder.

Not at all: http://www.cochlear.com/
My mother's got one. Speaking with her, you cannot tell.

This technology plus longer-lasting batteries could lead to advances such as an entirely internal implant, something that I think many, many cochlear impant users would welcome as it would be another step closer to removing a visible distinction between deaf and hearing people.

It's not just this specific instance, either - think beyond the cell phones and laptops you have to recharge now. Perhaps hybrid/electric cars could use larger versions of these - when you pay for a parking space, you also pay for a recharge. Those parking spaces themselves could also be powered/charged by the newly-developed solar cells.

So while it may seem large and inefficient at first sight, it could lead to some very interesting secondary developments down the road.

More on-topic, it'd be cool to have huge memories from this tech, but it'd make more difference to me if we could access main memory faster. Currently the system bus speed seems to be the bottleneck, so we just throw more memory at it and leave chunks of programs in there. We also use branch-prediction, etc.

Another cool idea: I remember well how the birds sounded in the morning; maybe the memory is sweeter than the drabness of the reality? This all makes me wonder if anyone has tried to map the extent and size of human (organic) memory and its speed. How would one do this? Any way to duplicate similar functionality?

Very good points that s20451 made.

I suppose I would qualify as a Cyborg; I am hearing-impaired and have a Cochlear Implant. Social-wise, it's kind of a mixed bag. On one side of the coin, people in general are fascinated by the prospect of restoring hearing that was lost and the very idea of having a biological implant in my head. On the other side, however, the Deaf community generally shuns them as their equivalent of "tools of Satan." I feel that in the decades, even centuries, to come, such divisions will stil exist on this topic. It's unavoidable today and will be unavoidable tomorrow.

I have seen people in public that have a jack behind their ears that connects to hearing device. Here is a link with info.

Isn't this being 'jacked in'?

A Nucleus cochlear implant changes sound into electrical impulses and uses these electrical impulses to stimulate the hearing nerve, which can be interpreted by the brain as sound.

Isn't this what this article is talking about? The only thing I can see that is different with this Slashdot article is that the info coming from the nerves can be sent to a computer. I'm sure these ear implants can do that also, but the need isn't there.

The bionic ear has been around for many, many years now.

It was pioneered by an aussie company, Cochlear. It works by using an electrode to directly stimulate the receptors inside the cochlear.

A small implant is inserted under the skin behind the ear, the electrode run into the cochlea via a small hole drilled in the skull. There are no wires that leave the body; the device recieves data and power via an unobtrusive induction coil which is simply clipped on to hair near the implant.

New developments in the area include a plan to stimulate auditory receptors on the brainstem directly, and also development of better sound processing algorithms.

Invasive (ie where you have to cut tissue open) interfaces are bad because it is basically an open wound that is open to infection; also, any foreign materials (wires etc.) inside the body will be attacked by the normal defence mechanisms.
This has been countered somewhat by materials with low bioreactivity (I don't know too much about that) but still there is the problem of the open wound.
One option would be to have the interface under the skin and the information transmitted via a coil (like the bionic ear, pioneered by those cool aussies at cochlear).
Another option is to induce a current directly in nerves without placing anything inside the body at all; I *think* its called functional electrostimulation. Its the kind of thing that is useful for paraplegics of all sorts, and centres around regaining the use of existing limbs that have had their nerve control damaged or broken in some way.

There's an Australian company, Cochlear that's had these things working for something like ten or fifteen years now...
They're up to their third generation models now.
From their site:
Cochlear has been the innovative leader in implant technology since 1982. 14% of our revenue goes toward research and development of new technology. Our commitment to pioneering new technology has led to many cochlear implant firsts that put us at the forefront of our industry.

We were the:

First to bring cochlear implants to market.
First cochlear system to gain worldwide approval for use by adults and children.
First to offer the Auditory Brainstem Implant (ABI).
First with Neural Response Telemetry (NRT).
First to offer an ear level (BTE) speech processor to all Nucleus recipients.

-- kai

Give a man a mixtape, and he'll be grooving for an hour,