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Warwick Gets a Few More Wires
teamhasnoi writes "CNN reports that a British university professor has been fitted with cyborg technology. (100 wires embedded in his wrist) This apparently enables his nervous system to be linked to a computer, encoding movements like wiggling fingers and feelings like shock and pain, and recorded for the first time. Is this the end of VCR+? Or the beginning of an (unholy) marriage of man and machine?" Warwick has been doing this for five years now.
Has anyone here read Neuromancer? It was the first book of the Cyberpunk genere, and it preceded Snow Crash and The Diamond Age.
Anyway, in this book, one of the main focuses is how they are fitting the characters with wires and chips and such, and they set it up so that one of the characters is acting like a video camera and another one is set up in such as way that he can see and feel and hear everything she experiences.
Right now, I'm wondering how we can use this to grow the appropriate meat chunks based on a user's input...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Better not try to fly from Newfoundland to Toronto, if he knows what's good for him.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
"...Or the beginning of an (unholy) marriage of man and machine?"
I still can't marry a boyfriend (man and man).
Get your priorities right.
Captain Cyborg shoots down from the skys and enters the realm of bullshit...yet again! And what happens? the entire mainstream media decides he's obviously an expert in his field and listens!!!
Do they know the rest of the Cybernectics profession cringes with embarrassment every time Captain Cyborg appears on the back of a cereal packet???
We all know that little kids in Japan already have Sony Playstations grafted into their bodies.
Button sensors in fingertips, a video pipeline into the optic nerves, etc.
It's a big secret, but we all know they are doing it. The reason Sony can't provide a 1000x performance increase to the PS3 is because of the limitations of the human nervous system, not because of some silly thing like computing limitations. You just wait for umbilical attachments for kids so they can work in parallell.
"Mommy, Billy jumped off the couch after a dragon and hurt my belly button!"
I can just imagine the lawsuits.
We are Sony. You must be assimilated. Do not buy XBox, Do not buy Gamecube. Wait for PS3k
-Scott
Boy, did that movie suck?
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
Warwick also hopes to wire himself up to a ultrasonic sensor, used by robots to navigate around objects, to give himself a bat-like sixth sense.
Hmm.. I've heard that when somebody loses one sense (sight, hearing, etc) the other senses grow stronger to compensate. So the obvious question is: Would this work the other way around? If you add a 'sixth sense' would the strength of your five basic senses be diminished? Would they become 'lazy'?
air and light and time and space
I hope he doesnt leave the country alot .. .. and make major bucks once the airport security guys insist on pulling the wires out of his arm.
.. i have to say this is neat .. especially how this technology could lead to 'filtering' nerve impulses through a processor for things like 'MS' or maybe parkensons.
otherwise he may have to get involved in a scandolous lawsuit
and stealing his sunglasses.
But back on topic
or another posibility (off the cuff) allowing people with severe burns or severd nerves to regain tactile feeling in their hands (even if its simulated)
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
twisted and e-vil
Blaze a trail to the New World
His claim that a 2 hr operation proves this is not a publicity stunt does not carry a lot of weight w/me.
The girls at most any local strip club have been through more surgery than that- and it has nothing to do w/noble intentions.
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It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
as i understand it, pain/heat/cold sensory input is sent through the nerve endings as chemical/electrical pulses. wouldn't this sort of electrode "paralyze" his hand, removing him of all feeling, or at the very least; give him that "oh shit my arm went all tingly when i fell asleep on it again" feeling? i know the latter has to do with lack of blood-flow, but it seems like his sense of touch will be at a serious disadvantage.
on a second thought; do you have "upstream" nerve channels (hand to brain), and "downstream" (brain to foot) nerve channels? or do they just use the same neural pathways?
this is good for "terapalegics" (3 limbs missing?), but might this have any applications for scroleosis, or MS? (my friend was recently diagnosed, and a co-worker just had back surgery, i know not much more about the disease)
moox. for a new generation.
I was kind of hoping that the first cyborg would have a borg-like eyepiece and very tall grey hair, so he could greet humanity with the phrase "HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN !!"
Instead, the first cyborg greets humanity with "I am not a quack! This is real science! No, it's not a publicity stunt! We might actually learn something from this!"
What a let down.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
for human computer interfaceing, there is a more direct method for gathering movement information: These guys at Brown University have gotten this information from a monkey by monitoring very few neurons directly in the brain(I as few as 20). Looks like the monkey are always going to be one step ahead of us:)
--
What is the sound of this sentence?
You know while all of this type of cybernetic stuff is kind've cool, I have to believe that $715,000 on a few gadgets is a bit extreme. Look at it this way, I have two daughters who's computing power, mobility, task ability, etc ad infinitum is vastly superior to anything we will see for some time. I think I have a few hundred dollars in each of them (what insurance didn't pick up and including vaccines, etc), and I had a hell of a lot of fun creating them. Yeah, working with servos and transistors is some fun, but I like to make my future chore doers the old fashioned way. ooooo -- penguin dung
Check out The Register's coverage of Warwick. This guy is a publicity hound, with little (if anything) to show that justifies all this hype.
VCR+ is just so late 90's. TiVo is where its at ! ;-)
From the register article:
"But wait, where there's a sponsor, there's a commercial opportunity. Tumbleweed, a specialist in secure communications, is providing the technology "vital to ensure the safe transmission of our nervous system signals via the internet," Captain Cyborg says"
They say they want to send "feelings" over the web.
I can't wait until they start sending out emotional spam. I haven't really bought into any of the "enlarge your penis" emails. But if they carry with them a great sense of inadequacy...
who knows?
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It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
If we can decode the human nervous system, that would be a huge step. I'm not sure if it's a good one or bad one, but a step.
However, I don't know how successful we will be at integrating computers and the body. As far as I understand it, the nervous system while based on electrochemical energy circuits, is not a binary system. Each nuron has many possible states, not just on/off. These various neuron states cause different neurotransmitters to be released at synnapses (where they connect) and somehow a super-complex net of this leads to consciousness. Hopefully this research will eventually shed some light on that "somehow".
In the mean time, the most succeess will probably come from just letting the human body adapt to computerized input, like that optical sonar implant they did a while back.
Howard Dean for president
Despite the fact that some of you feel The Reg. to be unnecessarily sarcastic or (tongue and cheek) sensationalistic, I think they've hit it spot on with their take on Prof. Warwick. He seems to be pretty much into it for the 'look-at-me-I'm-original' factor, but he doesn't seem to have much scientific credibility when it comes right down to it. Here is a good Reg. analysis from 2000, after his the big story in Wired came out about him: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/29/9250.html.
His attempts to become a cyborg from what I understand consisted of little more than putting a chip in his body which would open a door as he walked towards it. How is this that different from: having the chip in your pocket, sticking it to your arm with some sort of patch, etc. My roommate's cat has a chip implanted in her to find her in the case of her running away. Is she a cyborg kitty??
As far as this new venture is concerned, Warwick seems to have the idea that using this kind of technology to help paralyzed is his idea, or has never been done. Think again, Professor Warwick (I really this is somewhat different but seems to be essentially the same idea, stimulating nerves to create movement in people struggling with paralysis...my point is merely that Warwick is not the brilliant loner on the revolutionary fronts of scientific acheivement that he makes himself out to be...there are people doing real science all over who don't need the gratification of being in the media--this is a non-story).
Check out this link for further information: http://www.kevinwarwick.org.uk/.
awesome movie. Yes, that's exactly what popped into my head upon first glance. Of course, it was my daily after school fare for a couple of years in the mid-80's. but then I got to thinking that this taking the "easy" way to achieving that goal.
as for not being able to feel the bat-like 6th sense, I can totally wrap my mind around "feeling" a wall that is six feet away from me in total darkness, if this device provides some sort of stimulus based on ultrasound. Of course, the thought of feeling pressure against my skin from something I'm not touching would probably drive me nuts after a day or so. I'd rather have implanted bluetooth paired up with a system that reacts to my thoughts first. Home automation meets Firefox!
Talk about freaking out a date when you bring her home!
Intelligent Life on Earth
"Put forward in fiction, these ideas can be quite interesting, but to see these ideas put forward by someone who's supposed to be a serious theorist...."
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
Watched the discovery channel a while back. Had a piece about these devices that implanted wires to help paralyzed people walk. Problem was that the wires break/wear-out. The paralyzed people end up with hundred of wire filaments lacing their legs where the few good nerves are. The xrays looked like steel wool. They reported that it tended to be painful but surgery to remove the thousands of little pieces of broken up wires was just too difficult.
Beware of combining organic and non organic substances. The living things break and rebuild themselves constantly, in fact it is part of their design. Metal wire are not organic.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Curious George
***General Consultant to the Human Race*** My opinions are free. You get what you pay for.
Uh, I don't get it. Why?
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
"I have to thank Professor Kevin Warwick at the Cybernetics Department of Reading University. He was very generous with his knowledge during the research period of this book. Professor Warwick is the first human being to insert an active computer chip into his body, directly connected to his central nervous system. Proof that this story is not science fiction."
Two things which spring to mind when comparing this book with Prof Warwick's self aggrandising waffle are that...
I worked in the lab which built the door-opening, PC-booting stuff at Reading. What we didn't tell the countless media hacks was that he had the implant removed after a few weeks, and that a Smart Card in his back pocket was exactly what was opening the doors ;o)
He was/is, however, very competent at teaching Control Theory. He had me understanding Nyquist in a few weeks, which is saying something. Unfortunately, as I graduated, he seemed to have laid claim to work done by other people in the department, causing several good staff to leave.
It is a pity that Cybernetics is reduced by Warwick to robotic gizmos, when it should really be known as a meta-science or scientific philosophy. Its applicability is far beyond robots and just the technological, to business models, large-scale human behaviour, meteorology, etc., etc.
Warwick about Warwick Watch:
It's pretty good. I feel a bit of a celebrity in a way. I think it gives me some street cred.
Ouch. The proper way to talk about 'street cred' is in the third person. 'I have street cred' is pretentious, and 'you have street cred' just sounds silly. 'he/she has street cred' is the only way to discuss the concept that doesn't make you look silly.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Mr. Warwick has just undergone his most extensive and painful 'cyber-surgery' to date. After a gruelling twenty-hour operation, cutting-edge 'cyber-medicine' has managed to give Warwick a prosthetic clue.
The electronic 'micro-chip' helps regulate Warwick's desperate appetite for publicity. Scientists hope that one day, clueless people everywhere will be able to benefit from this technology, including such celebrities as George Bush and the Church of Scientology.
- undoware.ca
or as they say in the UK, "Stop right there or I'll yell stop right there again."
I don't know if you read this, but it appears that our society ,may not be ready for cyborgs..yet
"Get them before they get....