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Linking Hardware To Wetware
Vikki_R. writes: "Wired has an article about grafting a microelectric circuit directly onto a human brain cell. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have been working on developing an interface between semiconductors and neurons. Imagine being able to give your computer a piece of your mind ..." Update: 11/25 22:54 GMT by T : Here's an earlier post linking to a different article on the same research.
Lotsa downsides, yes, most related to 'system' security. Lotsa upsides, though. Imagine what this would do for education. How much of what we all went through was "Memorize this for your test tomorrow". Wouldn't it be fantastic if we could dispense with nearly all of that and jump straight to understanding of concepts rather then spend years memorizing mostly useless facts?
How about occupational specialization? The sum of human knowledge is getting so huge that nobody can be an expert in more than a few fields. Not least of all because nobody lives long enough to learn more than that. If we can add whole rooms to our memory and thinking capacity, what more could we accomplish?
I'm trying to imagine what this could do to software design; rather than typing code and looking at it on a screen, we'd simply write it in our minds. It'd certainly be faster; combine it with instant recall of the entire program, no matter how large, and you've got a truly powerful programming tool. It'd make Emacs and VI look like punched cards.
Dyolf Knip
...Michael Colicos, the guy over at qflux.net, has been working on something similar in his day job; in fact, his work will be on the cover of the Novebmer 30 issue of Cell (probably the most pristigous biology journal).
Colicos also has a series of "virtual intelligence" programs and screensavers (win32 only, unfortunately) that do some interesting stuff.
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.