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NASA Controls Jet With Nerve Signals
__roo writes: "According to this press release, NASA scientists were able to control a 757 jumbo jet simulation using neurolectric machine control -- muscle-nerve signals fed to a computer, which used a neural net to learn how to interpret the signals. The first prototype armband was made from exercise tights, and used metallic dress-buttons as dry electrodes. This page has high resolution photos of the device."
Everyone becomes educationally equal? Uhm... Would you mind telling us what planet you're from?
Access to the same information does not equate to the same education. If you don't have someone who can properly feed you the information in a way that you can understand, having all the information in the universe isn't going to help you one bit. And knowing a lot of trivia does not make you educated either. It just means you know a lot of shit, but doesn't mean you understand any of it.
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
This also requires a high-quality, high-bandwidth low-latency wireless connection (no satellite bounces).
Doing this on models is hard enough, much less a modern widebody. And it's usefulness would be restricted to 'Airplane'-type scenarios (Don't eat the fish!) where both pilots are incapacitated without affecting the primary systems. Maybe in a highjacking situation (with ground-based override? There would be SOME way to turn it off unless they integrate it into the flight control computer on a fly-by-wire craft. Plus you then open yourself to highjacking from the GROUND. Lol.)
"'Tis great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults, greater to tell him his." --Poor Richard's Almanac
Excellent book by Dale Brown goes DEEP into this. Check it out.
yadda
The Boeing 777's auto-pilot is apparently capable of landing the plane completely automatically.
As for Karma Whoring, so sorry to those with sour grapes, but I just say what I think. Been at this for, oh, many months, and still ain't nowhere near massive Karma, so if I'm a KW I must suck pretty bad.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Usually 757s are not considered "jumbo jets".
This is a title reserved usually for 747s.
Pilots nowadays are only used for three things:
- Navigating the plane while on the ground.
- Navigating the plane while in holding patterns around the airports
- Emergency collision avoidance
Given the assumption that the tower will clear a flight path and that somebody will be sitting there to hit the brakes when the plane touches down, there is no reason at all why planes couldn't land themselves after pushing the big, red emergency buttonThere is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
Well, if they can make it to the public, maybe I can use it to control my server room. Combined with wearable monitor, it's nice to type virtually in the air and control my *nix boxes in the server room.
I saw "made from exercise tights," and immediately thought, "Son, there's a panty in your head."
What about the physical resistance to movements a control stick offers? Having never flown a 757, I can't comment first hand, but isn't the "feel" of the stick one way in which a pilot is able to keep aware of the condition/movement of the plane? On the other hand, perhaps this sort of thing would give better control to the pilot, who could concentrate less on just holding on to the controls, and more on controlling the plane in an emergency. Perhaps a dual system? Physical stick and neural armband, each as a back-up to the other, pilots choice on which to use as primary control device?
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Of course. But I was responding to speculation that this kind of tech. (well, more specifically more advanced stuff like direct mind-computer links) will become pervasive throughout everyday life.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
I noticed that, too. Why is the joystick right next to his hand? I thought the point was that you didn't need a joystick anymore. Phallic imagery?
-B
I remember watching star trek voyager once. when they had to drop their core. (core dump, get it?). What happens when the user thinkgs in exclamation, "Oh Shit!"
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
If the avionics are advanced enough for this, just push the red "EMERGENCY" button on the top of the instrument panel. It will put the plane level at altitude, and eventually it'll land as best it can at the nearest airport. It's there to give Hollywood stewardesses other things to do. It's standard equipment, effective as of the next "Die Hard" movie.
Well, it is more complicated than that...for example at 300 MPH it's not unusual to have significant weather events within 1/2 hour. But it's almost possible, so I'm only being a little silly. Particularly because there already are aircraft for which it will be easier to do. Not that pilot incapacitation happens easily...
indistinguishable == inability to perceive a difference.
Any technology indistinguishable from magic ==
any technology which cannot be perceived (/classified) differently from magic
is insufficently advanced.
The point being that it is a refutation of the original quote: sufficiently advanced technology would, of necessity, be well understood and explainable to the last microscopic detail. An insufficiently advanced technology is one where there are many unexplained questions and 'magical' effects. The technology of electrical capacitance was insufficiently advanced in ancient times -- capacitors were holy objects with the power to hurt and kill.
Programming on an old, bizarre, system with many acts of 'black magic' is another example of technology, or more generally, knowledge, that is insufficiently advanced -- as it is only partly understood, and therefore 'magical'.
--Lilior
The day after i watched that movie, i was at work and some stupid program crashed on the stupid NT machine, and the error message it gave said the memory could not be "read" and i laughed my ass off =:-)
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Play Six Pack Man. I
In order to improve reaction times, Pilots (read: navigators) have been ordered into small chambers full of reaction enhancing drugs (read:spice) as seen in the movie (and book) Dune!
seibed
And as for the 'sliding' issue, that's one of the reasons why they use a neural net in the first place: it can adapt to changes in signal characteristics. They've done similar things with genetic algorythms before.
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
But, if / when we succeed in that... mouhahahaha.. Perhaps some sort of CNS nerve tap? .. gotta figure a way to do it that doesn't require surgery more complex than getting a pierced ear.
Perhaps a neural net could be trained to learn how to input signals rather than interpret outputs? A sufficiently powerful, changing magnetic field can induce a change in charge within a conductor (this is how nerve inductors work), but they suck (bulky, power hogs, heat, crappy resolution).
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
maybe its the start of too much specialization, and that we will all forget how to do mundane things, and then when we all forget how to do everything, the empire will collpase, and then some place called a "foundation" will set up a pseudo religion and make everyuthing okee dokee....
tagline
... hi bingo
This sounds like a movie I saw where the russians developed a fighter jet that was controlled by the mind. It flew how where you thought it to fly. The cacth was that you had to think in russian.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
The advantage to this scheme is that it's completely voluntary. It's no more than a more convenient and hidden keyboard that you can choose what to type onto. Granted, there may be circumstances where you don't think before... thinking (to the computer), but it would take a lot of trickery before someone else could get you to tell them whatever they want.
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You can find it in the Internet Movie Database.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
My favorite incredibly-long-and-stupid-pointless-name was:
(and i am not making this up, look at the thing in a store some time)
'Saitek Cyborg 3D USB Gold'.
I laughed so hard I about shat my pants when I saw an ad for it in pc gamer.
I don't really mind double posts on
The Power Glove was nothing like this. All it did was contain little switches inside that activated depending on what joints you had bent in your hand. Yes, it did suck, but this is completely different. :)
I don't know about you, but my servers run on the power of cotton candy and happy thoughts. -Anonymous Coward
except that the person he was visualizing killing was a "friendly".
If you can find the right neurons, and the guy doesn't mind having a bunch of electrodes stuck through his skull and membranes into the appropriate regions of the brain... probably.
A neural net is simply a nonlinear function fitter, after all; it takes a vector of inputs and produces output(s), based on preselected, preferably at least locally differentiable nonlinear functions of weighted combinations of inputs -- with the weights being what's trained. If you have enough nodes in a couple of hidden layers, and useful inputs, AND enough training time, you can have enough degrees of freedom for the fitting to work well.
But you need to find the appropriate inputs, which since it's meant for conscious control, means you need to find neurons which can be consciously influenced. That's probably harder, much harder, in the CNS than for nerves that control voluntary muscle movements, because we *have* largely voluntary control over most of our muscles (excluding reflex arcs and so forth), and since the nerves that trigger muscle movements aren't hard to find, compared to individual neurons in the brain.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
What happens?? I'll tell ya!! America's Funniest Plane Crashes NEXT ON FOX!!
oh wait, wrong story....
anyway, this is certainly great if the pilot looses both hands during combat/flirting with the stewardess/repairing device xyz/whatever...
I just want this for my remote control, pressing a finger for those quick channel flicks is just too much work
Obviousman is obviously not obvious enough
Check out Stelarc's work ...
"Uh...sorry honey, I just hit a bogus link and the browser went wild! No, no I have no idea what goatse.cx stands for. Isn't it some foreign dish? "Uh-oh"?? It's...umm... it's a site for helping guys with stress I think..."
--Clay
No it doesn't. He's wrong, but so is this explanation of why. Your orignal point still stands, unless he's trying to make the point that a really really advanced technology would seem better than magic. If so, then it's just silly.
Hmm, all I need now is a few non-geek applications <sef>
[1] Although AFAIAA LRDs haven't got this far... yet.
You know, this whole idea sucked really bad the first time when it was called a POWER GLOVE.
Liar! The Wizard, the 90-minute Nintendo commercial which I believe was the first real advertisement of the Power Glove, continues to be one of my greatest childhood memories.
THE POWER GLOVE!
So this pilot walks into a bar...Next time he should duck!
Ha ha. yuck, yuck, yuck
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
See the wires? See the... Uh oh, got an itch... Oops, muscle spasm...
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
That's an easy one to account for - it'd be standard to account for that sort of weak signal and damp it down so only stronger impulses get through. Or, put differently, if you look at an EKG readout what's important are the large peaks and valleys, not the minor jitter in the line.
-- fencepost
fencepost
just a little off
Makes you wonder how this can effect the way a doctor operates on a patient. Perhaps some day a doc can work on a patient from the golf-course clubhouse...
anyone whose a robotech fan remember that they controlled the Mechs using neurological transmitters located in the helmet. Because they were so complicated to operate (87 controls in the cockpit alone), this was needed. Good ole' fashioned anime baby! :)
Cool, lets get some video games using this. Playstation 3 maybe?
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It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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Yeah, and he lost quite a few battles too
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It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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The changes this kind of innovation could bring to cybersex?
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
Stewardess bends over to pick somthing up, pilot gets a woodie, and plane goes into a nose dive!
Wouldn't that be a "steep climb" straight up?
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
That's all I need... The piulot gets a cold.... I get on the plane..... And he sneezes turing take off. Boom!
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
and your mom told ya beeing a mimic will get you nowhere, Ha!
Forgive me for my total lack of knowledgeo n the subject however.. I will take a stab here
(Yes i read article)
These neural nets supposedly "learn".
A sneeze would involve tons of signaling as many many muslces in your body work at once, not the response for say a gentle roll to the left.
Just a suggestion but I dont think its an issue since the muscle response is different and the neural net should be able to distinguish.
Jeremy
The pilot has a severe case of hiccups.
Oracle and unix guy.
If there is movement (e.g. in hands, et al.) perhaps the nerve signals that cause them can be put to use to enable such a person to control walking or other more natural movements than are now possible in uncomfortable wheelchairs today (e.g. after lengthy periods in a single posture).
Even if it turns out not to be possible to enable a more natural means for PWD's to get around, perhaps it would help if they could - e.g. by hand movements - cause movements of otherwise disabled legs, et al.
This would facilitate keeping the legs fit (precluding the need for massage therapy by others and/or amputation, in the worst of cases), until better systems are developed.
I'll bet it gets quite painful holding your arm outright and steady.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
I believe all of the mecha in the Battletech genre were controlled partially with a Neurohelmet (mostly for balance). A much more fun scenario, especially when you consider that most neurohelmets were explained to give the unauthorized user a massive shock and brain trauma
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
This would be great, but it will certainly lead to this story:
ARLINGTON, VA (AP)- Tragedy struck the passengers of a USAirways 737 today, when, during a remotely controlled emergency landing, the aircraft suddenly dropped 1500 feet and crashed into an apartment building. The controller doing the landing, James "QuakeR0kZy0" Fielding, explained to NTSB investigators that, during the landing, his mind drifted, and he realized how he could have "fragged that sucka" in a recent death match. Fielding apologized for the crash, but maintains that it wouldn't have happened if there were "fewer lame-ass campers". He then went on to praise former President Regan for creating his job opportunity for him, by firing striking air traffic controllers in the early 80s.
For more info on Macross Plus and other Macross anime, check out the Macross Compendium
if the device shocks you if you do something remarkably stupid...
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Is this safe? Tying in something like nerves to controlling an airplane? What happens if you do something involuntary like cought? What if you sneeze? What if you have the hiccups? Hell, what if you fart?
If he dies violently then all that twitching might have an effect, otherwise he just evacuates his bowels and bladder as he slumps over. I don't think the control mechanism is sensitive to odors and as long as none of the controls are strapped on below the waist the moisture shouldn't get to it....
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As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Using this technology to fly an airplane is neat, but doesn't really make it any easier. How about applying this sort of thing to a task where smaller movements would be an improvement? Anybody out there like manual labor? ;) I could learn to enjoy raking the yard in this fashion. Or at least not be exhausted by the effort. People who have a limited ability to move might also appreciate such an application. (I've heard that such things exist, but I believe surgery and bionics were involved.)
This is far-out stuff that is many years away from being implemented.
Something much closer to actually getting implemented is the next generation of aircraft where there are no windows for the pilots to look out of! Because of the need to streamline the fuselage in order to reduce drag, pilots will look at video screens for their visual cues when taking off and landing. As an additional benefit, the displayed view can be overlaid with infrared and radar images so fog, rain and darkness will not impede safety. Wish I had a link for it, but it's true.
The feeds are outside the scope of this conversation, which simply talks about input devices. You're right though, a cheap joystick tends to suck. I'd probably go with a used Thrustmaster F-22 Pro with FLCS, and use the digital upgrade (available from stickworks) to get a nice, quality stick. That's what I'm doing at home now, except I don't have a FLCS. TM also made some nice aircraft aluminum pedals a while back.
Actually, you could handle up to four seconds of lag (or so) piloting a craft that large if you had some advanced avionics helping you. It would be difficult, but you could train for it.
Hell, ssh2 can solve THAT problem :)
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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Explain, in two hundred words or less, why you couldn't do this with a $5.99 joystick from Fry's, and perhaps a keyboard.
Can't? That's because that's totally feasible.
I'm not sure what this is supposed to be good for, unless they're using it as a first step to something else. The fact of the matter is that if you're acting like you're using a joystick, then you might as well just use a joystick. Having to calibrate to the muscular impulses of a human is harder to deal with than dirty pots; You can replace the cheap-ass stick for next to nothing. If you upgrade to a $50 M$ Sidewinder Force-Feedback 3D Bac-o-Bits Pro (I always have to throw at least one extra term into needlessly long names) you can even have force feedback.
I don't know what this is supposed to be good for, but emergency landings ain't it. Maybe it'd be handy for shaving another couple of pounds off a fighter jet.
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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Imagine using one of these to play [Quake/UT/Cstrike]! Talk about the ultimate controller, as many buttons and doo-dads as you could physically control, with much less delay than you'd have if you actually had to move your finger. Also, I could touch-type at 300wpm with one of these...
HOWEVER, you might run into a few problems while looking at pr0n...
This
I can see the headlines now. Of course it will all be recorded on the black box.
A thing like this on the Amiga? I vaguely remember trying to keep rolling eggs from falling through holes in a chute with a headband full of electrodes on my forehead...
Not only can they take control of and land even a damaged jumbo jet, but they can do it one-handed.
somebody get's an itch or twitches and a jet goes down... Nice feature =P
E.
www.randomdrivel.com -- All that is NOT fit to link to
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
The story mentioned that "Scientists designed software that can adjust for each pilot's nerve patterns, which can be affected by caffeine use..."
These guys know their market pretty well.
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
So this is how we can activate the frickin' laser beams on the sharks' heads!
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
All but a few old aircraft have no feedback in the stick. Everything designed in the past 15 years or so just translates the stick movements into digital signals, which are sent to the hydraulic control system. The only feedback the pilot feels in the stick is from springs, just as with your joystick or wheel. All the pilot's information comes either from instruments or from feeling the physical movements of the aircraft as a whole.
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
Sarcasm is the recourse of a weak mind...
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2. Hypothetically. If the pilots are incapicitated, how is someone else going to *easily* take control of the aircraft. Oooopss wait while I strap on some electrodes... oh nevermind there's the ground.
I see now reason why the plane couldn't also be fitted traditional manual controls. Most things with automated controls these days have "manual overrides," I'm sure it'd be the same.
Stupid like a fox!
Ok, so they shoved input from the probes in to a neural net and trained it for a while(they didn't really say how long it took). Thats nice, but would it need to be trained fully before every flight(pilot had coke with lunch, caffine level high, please retrain). Could they have a template net that would be a general starting point for training, and then it could adapt to the pilot? And would the net continue to learn during the flight? It could be bad, because the control characteristics would change between takeoff and landing, but could also be benificial, with the pilot's caffine level. But then again neural nets aren't always predictable if you keep them learning(just look at humans). Anyone have experience with stuff like this.
Your logic is there, but I disagree with the reasoning. Well one point in particular. The fact that people would not have to remember all the "useless facts" There is nothing useless about useless facts. Retaining information is just another way of exercising a muscle. The brain needs as much exercising as possible, skills and understanding can not be enhanced without personally skewed understanding of the facts, which IMHO can not be done through cold hard text book ideas.
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
I am surprised that at a brief scan no replies to this posting appear to take it to it's logical (at least to me) conclusion.
.... I mean what is really the point ? Surely this is just one step closer to being able to intercept, translate and enact neural signals straight from the brain.
.... " ... what do you mean I'm a big fat idiot ? I didn't say that ! ... That's beside the point the point ... and stay out of my thought's in future ... "
Surely nobody would actually implement an interface that required you to wave your arms in the air ?
Now that's something I can't wait for. I just hope that we begin to get neural interfaces in my lifetime.
Ah just imagine what other developments would flow from that development
woo hoo bring it on !
3001:The Final Odyssey It's also the story with the towers and space elevators and a man-made ring around the planet. Everyone in the story has "braincaps" which function as ways to access information(think "The Matrix"), but when they were first implemented in large scale, there was resistance because they basically allowed direct monitoring of the mind. Unfortunately, the privacy advocates lost out and everyone in the story is wide open to scrutiny with only the assurances of the Gov't that they won't abuse the trust.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Extraterrestrials and porn? This is where Fox Mulder becomes really important...
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The geeks shall inherit the earth.
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Unless they are hoping they extend the neural network to read intentions to move, in the brain, then I don't see the big advance.
Phil
*laugh* I really should go to bed...
I was at Epcott a few years back and they had a skiing game that used "mind control". Had a pad you placed your finger on that sensed skin conductivity. Apparently your skin conductivity changes based on right-sided or left-sided thoughts. After about two or three times through the salolom course, I was getting pretty good. I don't think they were "cheating" by sensing imperceptible finger movement either.
Nope, it says just what its supposed to. It does make sense. Think about it.
I did think about it... it still doesn't make sense. You only negated one of the two key words: insufficiently. So it doesn't make sense as a joke. Re-read the original quote:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Yours basically reads like this:
"Any insufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
See?
-thomas
"And like that
The whole reason you get Carpal tunnel is the blood supply is shut off to your hands for so long things start to die. You might notice that there are a completely different set of muscles moving your hands around than are moving your forearms around, allowing you to type and swing your arms around (in circles if you wanted too) at the same time.
Another interesting feature is for paraplegics: Hook up sensors on the arms to control robotic legs. If you have someone with amputated feet (frostbite perhaps) hook up robotic feet to sensors on their thighs and calves.
I have a hunch why the whole concept worked was that the neural net had both the perfect target set (the stick position) and the neuromuscular sensors, allowing very accurate real-time training.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
- ...ability to control and "land" a simulated 757...
...a simulated "damaged" aircraft...
Well, they do say that any crash you can walk away from is a good "landing", so this REALLY makes me wonder./*drunk.. fix later*/
I think it wouldn't remove classes at all. When access to information and education become equal, that simply means that there will be some other classifier. The levels of ability will still be stratified. Genetics, upbringing, or other factors may classify you more intensely than they did before.
Think of the art that would be produced by attaching the electrodes to a cat and then chasing it with the neighbors dog. Amazing visual with heavy meaning!
-chaswell
I thought some DARPA project had a prototype neural interface a few year back? The Pilots took a little time to get the hang of it but it increased reactions by 10%-20%.
Has anyone else heard about it?
Another fine example of your tax dollars at work. Now if they took the same technology and made underwear out of it, then allowed for certain...enhancements...it could be useful. Otherwise, what's the point?
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
Yeah yeah yeah, it's the same principle. In fact, Atari had a prototype controller that fit over your head. They never realeased it because it got uncomfortable after about 10 minutes.
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
Man, that's my idea!
I've also always maintained that technology goes: Military -> Porn -> General Public.
The day we discover ET's, the military will be thinking "What weapons do they have.", while the 'adult entertainers' will say "how can we sell them porn?".
gadgetophile.com
I'm pretty sure he means what it says, and knows what it means (if you know what I mean). He's contradicting the original quote, probably implying that the perfect technology wouldn't be like magic, it would make more sense than magic. (Or something like that..my words, not his.)
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
Nope, indistinguishable means "looks like magic", not "doesn't look like magic".
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
DISCLAIMER: I have no knowledge whatsoever of neuroelectric patterns, neural nets, etc. I just like to think big, so indulge me or scroll past this.
:) )
Couldn't neural nets be used to "learn" neuroelectric patterns from the brain, thus enabling the guy in NASA's experiment to control the plane just by thinking about it?
Granted, it would require a much more advanced neural net, and probably much more "learning time" for the computer, but it should be possible nonetheless. Just run a precompiled simulation of a complicated flight pattern and have the guy concentrate on following the path of the plane on the screen, monitor his brain activity, and set a Beowulf cluster on the task of trying different combinations of brainwave-to-joystick-movement translations. Or am I just dreaming again?
(Notice the smooth way I slipped the words "Beowulf cluster" into that post
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
it would be likely he might make all sorts of muscular "mistakes" nthrough adrenaline
So you have pilots flying "simulations" all day long, including simulated failures and breakdowns. One time in 50 they are flying a real plane. Over time, they'd get used to it...
... of course, this brilliant scheme would require 50 times the current number of trained pilots. Oh well, that's someone else's problem
That's one way to get karma. You pretend you're smarter than the people who created the cool technology by pointing out failures in its current implementation.
Watch and learn, and you too could become a karma whore one day...
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
What about muscle spasms or craps.
Craps?
"The plane went into a prolonged spiral dive before landing into the ocean. The cause of the crash is under investigation."
political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
Introducing the new MicroSoft input device, IntelliSuit. Control your favorited Windows(TM) product with a twitch of the wrist. Coming soon, FORCE FEEDBACK! Soon you'll be able to dice it up with the best of them on Quake 4! Feel the bullets rip your chest apart while your friends pummel from all sides! *psst* i'll bet you can crash your box faster too :P
If I were to hook up ten of those button sensors to my finger tips and just think of the letters, would i be able to type faster? *A no smoking section in a restaurant is like having a no peeing section in a swimming pool*
15:38EST 03/08/2009 Black Box Transcript of Flight QF7845, SYD - LAX
...End Transcript...
Pilot: Man, i shouldn't have eaten that chilli!
Copilot: Tell me about it.
Pilot: <*cough*>
Copilot: Mayday! Mayday!
You also have to consider high stress situations though, the pilot was able to bring the aircraft down safely in a mechanical failure sure, but it was a simulation, if he were actually in the plane though, it would be likely he might make all sorts of muscular "mistakes" nthrough adrenaline not to mention an aircraft with a dead turbine doesn't always move so gently, factor in turbulence from uneven half powered flight, a stressed aviator, a hundred screaming passengers, a co pilot uttering obscenties every 5.5 seconds... I'd say this technology has a long way to go before it could learn coherant muscular instructions from a pilot in these situations. bad it might misinterpret signals, worse it might ignore the excessive movements of a stressed pilots hands. give the tech 2-5 years, and it might even be up to combat situations, for now though, I'd stick to the sims
Um... The powerglove did not read nervous impulses, unless you count reading what those impulses actually did to the muscles as such a device. In that case, my mouse is neurologically linked!!!
Though, where Nintendo failed, Atari prevailed. They actually had a device called the Mindlink Controller under development, but it was never released. Actually, it just took readings on changes in brow position or something, but it sure was closer, and cooler looking, than the power glove...
Landing a 757?!?! Ppphhbbttt - I beat every single one of my 8-bit Nintendo games. Let's see them pass metroid with the power glove - Then I'd be impressed. It sucked in 88 and it still sucks now - Thanx for the GREAT NEWS Slashdot.
"For some reason, I find the whole concept of this rather unsettling. I guess I don't like the idea of becoming overly dependant on a machine. What if the power goes out?"
If the power goes out in a 757, I think you're going to be in a world of hurt whether the joystick is virtual or gripped firmly in your sweatly little hand. (And I'm betting the hand would be sweaty pretty quickly after you realized your jumbo het didn't have any power...)
to the lowly consumer starts here. next week, we'll have lil' bobby driving mom and dad's car with all these wacky little electrodes attached all over his body. too bad bobby is prone little spastic seizures that occasionally runs the vehicle off the road. we should develop this technology for cats, too. cats in some kind of cyborg armor would be cool. or dogs who use neural net technology to deliver deadly electrical shocks to fleas - or better yet - an eletrical forcefield to protect the dog. the dog can drop his field when he (or she) wants to be pet by his/her owner. when that vicious rotweiler comes up to it, the dogs reaction (fear) triggers the neural net to put up the forcefield. or the optional death ray gun.
Perhaps this technology will lead to the development of a whole new generation of thrill rides--neural network gloves, bodysuits, etc. strapped onto sugar-stuffed toddlers allowing a lucky few aboard a remotely-controlled airplane (or car, or whatever) a first-hand account of what it would like to BE a child's plaything. Little Billy: Eh-pane go ZOOOOM! Passengers: AAAAAAAUGH!!!!! Billy's dad: For the love of GOD! That's NOT a SHOVEL!!!
Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit (Bidden or not bidden, God is present) --Carl Jung
Having a connection to a machine in such a matter makes it possible or will make it possible to allow the medical field to incorporate and assimilate mechanical limbs into people or other life. That is somewhat exciting. Hell if could even mean that you could use your computer with just thought...well why use a computer then...mathematical calculations? quick what is the integral of... Although, with the combantion of the optical pointing device and having the neuroelectric control...hmm the possiblities.
Mathematician, n.:
Someone who believes imaginary things appear right before your i's.
Actually, look at it carefully.
If you reword it, you get this: "If the technology doesn't look like magic, then it isn't advanced enough."
If you don't look up, you'll never know what's there.
What story are you referring to?
is Firefox
"But you must THINK. . . in Russian."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Good luck with it.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Controlling a device with an arm muscle is far different from "mind tapping". The brain is extremely complex, and the chances that we'll be able to decode nuron firings specific enough to identify complex commands is not likely without some type of embedded device. Plus, every brain is different which only adds to the problem. Right now we can "read" emotions via the electrical signals in the brain, but this equivalent to using the clapper to control devices. Its cool, but I highly doubt it'll get to the point where you can think "up" or "down" and a device could read it.
how is someone else going to *easily* take control of the aircraft
Offhand, I'd suggest that every crewer capable of flying the plane would be fitted with their own "neural device" prior to take off, with either the onboard computer calibrated for each pilot, or a calibration-on-a-chip type of thing, where the pilots neural patterns are stored in the armband, and activated when plugged in. Then it would be a simple matter of plugging the lead from the "device" into the computer, flicking a switch and away you go.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
neural net should be able to distinguish.
It's the should part that I find scary. I've done some work with neural nets. Machine learning is not like other stuff you've worked with. It is not deterministic. You can't say with 100% accuracy that any non-trivial output is correct. Neural nets just don't work that way. Straight C code can at least be understood, even if exhaustive proof of correctness is beyond most Q&A department. Very few people can understand even the simplest neual net.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Nope, it says just what its supposed to. It does make sense. Think about it.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
It would be different if the device could read nerve signals that do not correspond to muscle movements, but that does not appear to be the case.
There would be many disadvantages to using non-muscular impulses. On the not-so-serious side, what if the pilot has a vision of the plane crashing? That would suck. But by using muscular impulses, the pilot need not learn anything new. In addition, he/she would have greater control over the airplane. Also, accidents would be greatly reduced due to the fact that there are fewer mechanical devices. The neural net learns your motions, so any excessive movement would be cancelled-out by the computer. It can also re-learn if parts of the plane become disabled.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -Douglas Adams, THHGTTG
Isn't the problem (and benefit) with neural networks, that they are somewhat non-deterministic? I mean, it's all well and great if 99% of the time the plane behaves correctly according to its training, but what about that 1% of the time where some rogue neuron determins that the pilot *really* means to do a 180?
And what if, say, a stewardess given the pilot his coffee bumps him, and causes the plane to spiral out of the control? There is something to be said for good old fashioned mechanical controls.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Well, it's kind of absurd to argue about something this far off, but it seems to me that everyone would know the same things, to the extent that now, everyone has access to the same things on the Web. But there's a difference between having access to the text of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", and fulling understand all of its implications. That's why I said that I think humanity will focus on understanding and mastering. So society can still be stratified-- by how quickly understanding comes to each person.
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Cochlear ear implants already exist that interface directly to nerves. This removes the requirements for muscle movement, so mass doesn't need to be accelerated, so the bandwidth should be higher than normal humans' typing rates.
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Well, it appears that they've programmed the computer to only respond to input if the pilot has curled his hand into a fist. So it is possible for the pilot to "let go", just as they would release their grip on a real stick before moving their hand.
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And yes, neurons in the CNS are a little different than ones in the PNS. But not enough to make a difference, especially once you've put electrodes into them, because they both use the sodium/potassium/etc. ions for electrical signalling.
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I don't get it.
MSK
Nah, it'd never happen.
MSK
One thing that the story didn't talk about, but would probably be useful - does the interface provide any feedback to the pilot (aside from the plane dipping & rolling, of course)?
Electrical or sonic stimulation for instance? Feedback would bring the user "into the neural net", and would probably assist in learning how to use the interface & speeding up the user's reactions quite a bit!
The crash of their neural net based interface :P
Yeah, luckily they edited those scenes out of "Top Gun"... :)
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Intellimouse, schmellimouse! I want electrodes hooked up to my USB port, dammit!
But above all the question is: Who will volunteer to port this to 2.4.2??
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Oh, and one more thing... a "jumbo jet" is a 747. Despite the higher number, a 757 is relatively dinky. Single-aisle, and all.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
That sort of thing makes the FAA very unhappy. Not to mention the airline, since the guys can't fly until they test clean...
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Maybe they passed it through the Brunching Shuttlecocks sarcasticizer
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
People with degenerative muscle conditions can benefit from this technology as it removes the physical barriers from controlling devices.
On another note.....
Ever played a flight or driving sim. Remember how bad you were to start off with? The feedback level from the joystick/wheel is a poor substitute for the real thing.
When driving or riding I use the sensations I receive back through the wheel or bars to correct my driving/riding/flying.
So how remote of a sensation would flying a plane be if you lose this link? The PR talks about the system being used without any tactile feedback.
So to compensate would a pilot be best grabbing a joystick, whether real or not, and using this as a tactile prop.
And then we are back to square one.... joystick/yoke control :)
On virtual reality:
"The day an unemployed iron worker can lay in his barka-lounger and fuck Claudia Schiffer for $19.95, it'll make Crack look like fucking Sanka" --Dennis Miller
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Hmm, another of Arthur Clarke's visions come true? The brain cap? Will it also help detect the seeds of criminal behavior and alert the authorities before it manifests itself? I like Clarke's stuff, but I would rather die than wear a brain cap.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Your sig says:
"Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
But that doesn't make sense (nor is it funny as a joke). I think you meant 'distinguishable'... right?
"And like that
It's an entirely new interface, and is not limited by the older constraints of older interfaces.
Meaning that, unlike a cheap Power Glove, you are not limited to the degrees of freedom that your fingers and hand have. If you want to tap the muscular controls of your entire body, you can. If you want to tap into the muscles of just your arm, you can. If you just want the hand, you can. So it is already a superset of the powerglove. It would also mean that you aren't limited to on/off switches, but also the more analog like nature of muscle response over time and signal strength.
What use can the complex neural net have? Why not do an analogy?
We have fly by wire systems in which a computer device controls an aircraft and multiple control surfaces in ways and at rates that humans cannot, because there is too much information too process.
Not lets switch the direction of logic; you have a human controller, with much more sensitive and flexible control points than a Power Glove or joystick can sense. The neural net would allow one to almost directly map the human musculature to the airplane control surface, allowing both more control and higher reliability, without reducing flexibility or increasing complexity. It's not perfect, of course, but it's conceivable that all one needs to do is don a light slave suit and control a plane in the same way one would control rollerblades or skis; muscle control!
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
A car currently only allows for two/three degrees of freedom, what with the accelerator/brake and steering.
The proper analogy is if we use the muscles to actually control/dictate the ABS system, the 4 wheel independent suspension (anticipating speedbumps and potholes with active control), and 4 wheel drive.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Resistance is futile.
I wouldn't predict 'direct neural tapping' to be as mindblowing as you suggest.
If we all have our brains wired up to computers, they can perhaps become extensions of ourselves, the way a watch, a shoe, a sword can become an extension of a person.
But that does not mean we can become extensions of each other. People with quick and adaptable brains, in the neuro-plasticity sense, and not the smart and gifted sense, might be able to quickly learn how to communicate with each other, any more than two people from the same school speaking the same language are extensions of each other.
One would *still* have to interpret each person, the same way we interpret our vision, our sounds, our smells, our reality. We gain one more sensory organ, perhaps, but that's about it. We'd probably have to invent a synchronization language to allow ourselves to taste our SO's ice cream, but it still wouldn't mean *we* would be tasting it. It would probably still route it through our own taste centers, just that our two different taste centers may start to synchronize more.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
I'm not sure. Remembering the halcyon days of 8-bit BBC Microcomputers, I remember we had some kind of thing set up where you could influence a point on the screen from a couple of electrodes taped to your skin. I don't think it was quite the same technology, but it did work to a degree. Details are foggy because I was only about 11 years old at the time ;-)
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I've said it before, and i'll say it again. New technology goes strait to porn... :)
Even the pictures on the site suggest it... notice the hands...
Hey, this reminds me of that research project at (stanford?) a few years ago where they hooked some rig up to a guy's head and his brainwaves moved the mouse around.
No telling if they ever figured out how to click (or distinguish between right/left click, mousewheel, 3rd button, etc), but imagine the frag potential....
"Chill, Orrin!"---Trent Lott
ZAP!!! Turbulence sucks!
Seriously, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. How would you like to drive your car with no feedback at all? Holding on to an "air" steering wheel means that you have no feel for what the parts actually doing the work - the tires - are doing. What if there is a steering failure and the tires (or rudder) won't turn? How will you know? By looking at a display? Great, add that to the thousand other control items you have to look at in a cockpit.
We are just now getting to the point where fly/drive/control-by-wire systems are providing the necessary amount of feedback to the user to allow the user to gather the same information that was available in analog systems all along.
I think that this will be a great technology, but only if there is a compatible means of providing feedback to the user. All of the references to this type of technology in SF have always included force feedback as part of the equation.
This is incredible.
This is one step closer to the concept in sci-fi type stories where the vehicle is just an extension of your body. The plane/ship/space-vehicle/car just reacts to commands straight from your brain and eventually you get so used to the commands that it's just like using your own body. I know all the fears that a situation like that poses, but think of how cool it would be. Drag races with reaction times lower than ever thought possible simply because you don't have to wait for the signal to go from eye to brain to nerve, to muscle, to vehicle device, to vehicle drive. Instead it would go from eye to brain to vehicle and go!
Yeah, I know there would be better and more important ways to use it (think of dog-fights in the air or space with vehicles that are mind controlled), but drag-racing is in my family.;-).
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Which makes me jittery...
Which gets picked up by the controller
Which makes the plane shake
Which makes me MORE nervous...oh what vicious cycle!
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
I can't belive I'm the only Anne McCaffery fan here. Surely someone else must remember Helva, Simon, and Tia. Here we are getting closer to the day when cripples can scout around the universe and noone remembers Science Fiction has perdicted it.
um - little known fact:
(would YOU publicise this?)
Fighter pilots on long (8hr+) missions have been known to wear adult diapers.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
By definition, all theory is not "real". Macross plus had some interesting theories.
I am a bit confused on the moderation, 3? This comment is not relevant to the story at all.
One of the elements of the show is that there is a design competition between two designs, the YF-19 and the YF-21. One of the things that the YF-21 design had going for it was that it had an interface similar to the one mentioned in the story. The main difference is that the YF-21's interface didn't require the pilot to actually move any part of his body. He could simply "visualize" the whole aircraft as an extension of his body, and control it that way.Another thing worth mentioning, there was a scene where the YF-21's pilot visualized an easy way to kill the YF-19's pilot given the current circumstance. The YF-21's computer system took this as an order, and they YF-19's pilot was almost killed. This illustrates a potential danger in these kind of systems that the designers and/or users will have to be weary of.
I wonder if people who haven't learned to integrate their activities with a machine at an early age will ever manage to have this happen as seemlessly as you suggest. The people who invent this stuff may end up using this stuff rather awkwardly, like someone speaking a late-learned language, while their children will truly be the ones that inhabit a new world.
For some reason, I find the whole concept of this rather unsettling. I guess I don't like the idea of becoming overly dependant on a machine. What if the power goes out?
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
I am curious if anybody knows how hobbyist friendly this field is. It looks like the physical hardware needed to pick up these signals isn't much, but i can imagine you need some _REALLY SPIFFY_ (read expensive, large, current-hungry, heat dissipating...) amplifiers to make this sort of thing work, and then some really spiffy algorythms on the computer side to filter out noise that gets picked up, plus whatever low-level chatter is happening on that nerve...
So here is my question: Does anybody that knows something in this field know of a source of information on this? Is the technology patented by somebody? How complex are the electronics, and are the algorythms for extracting the data public?
The reason i ask is because i've always wanted to be able to do this, now i don't want to land jets, or play quake, i have a much more modest application in mind, i'd like to be able to get several (as few as four would still kick ass, although up to 10 would be nice...) reproducable (you don't have to be able to reproduce them from memory, there will be a visual feedback mechanism, so you know what you are inputting now, and you can watch it change as you "move"). I don't really have a practical use for this, and i'm sure i'll _always_ be able to type faster than i can use this method, but i still think it's very cool.
So i guess if it's something i could concievable do for under $1000 assumming i already had microcontroller tools, a scope, prototyping tools, etc... (so i'm talking only parts, books, software that must be purchased, and oddball tools...)
Thanks, and i really hope i hear from somebody, because this has sort of been a dream of mine since i was about 12 years old =:-)
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Play Six Pack Man. I
Control a Jumbo jet with nerve impulses...
Stewardess bends over to pick somthing up, pilot gets a woodie, and plane goes into a nose dive!
:-(
Course.. the pilot could start playing with himself.... watch that plane go up and down, up and down.... :)
more recently I saw a product hyped up to "read your mind" you placed your finger on something, and was able to move a plane just by "thinking" about it. when in reality you we're subconsciously moving your finger the way you wanted to go, this kind trick is common in other applications.
The use of a neural net however is quite good. neural nets are currently used in speech recognition, and writing recognition. basically you say "here's some data, it means A", "here's some other data, it means B". the neural net will be able to tell the two apart and allow for a good degree of error. this is the jitz of it, I'm not really a student of the field.
so it makes sense to use a neural net for a task of "these muscles patterns mean move left", and so forth. I'm just surprised I didn't hear about that success of such an application till they landed a freakin jet with it! but then again slashdot is eregular about there coverage of things, i imagine cmdrtaco and gang turned down the previous articals leading up to this one.
-Jon
Streamripper
this is my sig.
- tokengeekgrrl
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions
As for actual piloting or other safety-critical applications, though, I have to admit skepticism. Anything where fidgeting could actually result in death should probably be discouraged.
OK,
- B
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
I have a few concerns with that type of control: 1. What about muscle spasms or craps. Plus what if you need to "stretch" those muscles a minute? Do you now have to require co-pilots in every aircraft (course commercial aviation requires this anyhow)? 2. Hypothetically. If the pilots are incapicitated, how is someone else going to *easily* take control of the aircraft. Oooopss wait while I strap on some electrodes... oh nevermind there's the ground.
This new technology is significant in that neuroelectric control of computers can replace computer keyboards, mice and joysticks for some uses
It's been stated flippantly by some other posters, but I really seriously hope none of these uses include safety-critical applications, either for the user or for the user's "clients" of whatever sort. The example of an airline pilot is a good one--is it really smart to think that a pilot will be able to keep his hand under *complete* control for the duration of a 4 hour cross country flight? Much less the much longer intercontinental flights? Can you imagine the difficulty of keeping your arm completely still during the period of stable flight? I suppose it wouldn't be *that* hard to cut in and out with the autopilot, but still....
Furthermore, one advantage sticks etc. have is they don't require you to be physically tethered to the control system. If a pilot today has some medical emergency, not only does the copilot have his/her own stick, but the pilot could be removed and any other person capable of flying the machine could very quickly take over. How long would it take 1) to move the electrodes and 2) train the neural net for another person?
This really does not seem like it would be a good technology for any kind of control system where you have human failsafes to protect safety.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
"I'll bet you $100 that I can, too land a plane with both hands behind my back!"
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
Sheesh - the use of quotes in that article would make Dr. Evil proud:
...ability to control and "land" a simulated 757...
...control an aircraft without the aid of a "stick"...
...a simulated "damaged" aircraft...
Scientists outfitted a "pilot" with an armband...
Hmmm... a little over doing it? Do you need to put the word "pilot" in quotes (well, I did just then, but then I needed to, because... Oh, forget it.
OK first of all, there's a huge difference between what NASA does research on, and what the FAA approves. The FAA is a very conservative, safety-oriented organisation, and avoids change as much as possible. If this thing was put into fighter production tomorrow, it would be a decade before civil planes saw such a device.
Secondly, let's look at what this is: a fundamentally new way of controlling a plane with the same old movements. It's exciting and innovative, but effectively the pilot is still flying in the same manner as he did before, although without a joystick in his hand. Fly-by-wire systems and positional sensors offer the same capability.
Ultimately though, this is the thin edge of the wedge. Make no mistake--this will lead to entirely new ways of interfacing with machines of all types, and may be the start of true virtual reality. (like the transistor was the start of the modern portable computer) This isn't a device - it's a technology.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
All the time, he wonders when NASA will learn to convert to and from the English and SI system.
You know, this whole idea sucked really bad the first time when it was called a POWER GLOVE.
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
The Anime Geeks will note that one of the Valkyrie fighter jets/mecha in the Macross Plus series was controlled via electrodes and biofeedback.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The consequences of direct neural tapping are mind blowing, and in more than one sense. One question is that when everyone has their brains wired up to this tech and to the internet, everyone becomes educationally equal, and everyone can learn new skills very quickly. This technology is a step in the direction of a classless society.
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
I think of little else but you.
Can you imagine the pilot having too much coffee?
"Sorry folks for that wee bit of turbulence. I drank an extra cup of coffee today and I'm a little jittery"
Probably going to be the first plane crash due too caffiene.
Er, no. This is about muscular nerves. Picking out eight myoelectrical signals through (several?) cm of meat is no mean feat, but distinguishing what's going on in millions of ganglia through a skull? And that's merely considering the scale difference; I dimly recall the idea that muscular nerves were qualitatively different than the ones which we think with.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
It would be just like walking... at first, interacting with the computer pack would be awkward, but after a while you'd do it without thinking, and it would become a part of you.
Just as the avilablility of an always-on DSL connection allows people to use mapquest rather than storing an atlas at their house, this technology will allow humans to forget the millions of trivial facts and focus on understanding and mastering skills.
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