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Engineered Enhancers Closer Than You Think
Roland Piquepaille writes "Happy 2035! Thirty years from now, we'll use bionic eyes giving us 'zoom vision' for faster reactions. Nanobots injected in our bloodstream will complement our immune system. Artificial muscles built with electroactive polymers will help us to be stronger and faster. So you think it's science fiction? Not at all. You'll see that some people are so convinced that this kind of human enhancements will happen that they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.'"
Perhaps in thirty years we could obtain some degree of enhancement for our eyes that would be optically based. However, a more pressing (and needed) benefit will be a cure or fix for folks with vision loss. "Zoom lenses" and such could relatively easily be accomplished with bionically enhanced optics, but the real trick is going to be designing and implementing the hardware/wetware interface and creating true bionic retinas. Bionic implants for retinal degenerations as currently implemented are not going to work for a variety of reasons (read my doctoral dissertation to find out why), but there are other approaches that can be taken or modifications that will be successful (part of my current work). Also alternative ways of implementing the interface cortically will likely have some success (not my work, but it is of my colleagues). Artificial retinas are going to be harder than artificial cochleas for the hearing impaired or cortical control of motor functions which are both applications that are having some success currently. The retina is a much more complex tissue with (in our eyes) 55-60 different classes of neurons all wired together in a precise manner to generate proper signals for image interpretability. As an interesting aside, I have said this before on Slashdot, but human eyes are pretty pathetic in terms of their sophistication. Birds, fish and many reptiles have much more sophisticated retinas that perceive what we would term a multi-spectral visual world. A visual scene much richer that the simple three-space world we currently see.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Sigs cause cancer.
30 years ago they said in 30 years we would all be driving flying cars and would have the moon colonized, so I'm not sure how much I can trust predictions like these.
Although it is easy to say with the speed technology is moving things like this will be invented, I am sure there are some giant problems that will need to be solved first, and unless we get lucky I dont think these new technologies will be available in my lifetime.
There were some rumors on developing a technique of implanting stem cells or something like this to regrow missing teeth. Any news/details about that?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
It kind of sounds like you're saying that thirty years in the future, this stuff will still be thirty years in the future.
vicious, untreated political sewage...niche entertainment for the spiritually unattractive...worshipless pap
I guess it's the human nature that everybody wants to be better, that's why people go to kindergarten, school, high school, university and whatnot.
However, the thing is not everybody can achieve the same result in the school, and I'm sure not everyone can be enhanced to be equally strong with these enhancers.
After enough time has passed, this technology will probably be another toy for a selected few, just Ferrari or Porsche.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
So that's what all these "enhancement" emails I've been getting are about.
Slashdot editors, WAKE UP! Stop posting everything Roland submits, please!
Can't...get...slashdot...out...of...my...head...
It's like Jerry Springer for geeks. Please kill me.
Does anybody remember the Discovery Channel show "Beyond 2000?" Does anybody have a flyin car yet?
Athleats with normal 20/20 vision getting laser caritotimy to correct their vision to higher acuity than 'normal' 20/15 or 20/10.
You never know...
You'll see that some people are so convinced that [these] kind of human enhancements will happen...
;)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I keep getting email about "human enhancements".
But no nanobot is going to make this geek cool.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Where is your journalistic integrity?
Hey Slashdot! I feel like having the option to block this guy out on my Edit Home Page [slashdot.org] Page. I mean, he has more submissions than "samzenpus," whoever the hell that is.
Don't force me to write a RSS filter that blocks phrasewords out. I'm feeling too lazy atm.
/humming the Ghost In The Shell theme
, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.'"
Isn't that the difference between pro and amateur?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Eyes that zoom and see in the infrared spectrum (and hope my brain adapts, or at least gives me a color overlay of heat) when it gets dark and faster reflexes, and I will be happy.
That's right. All your base.
I hear that by the year 2000 we'll even have flying cars!
To the future!
Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better ... stronger ... faster.
/obligatory
Rolando Alert!
In thirty years, will Roland Piquepaille still be spamming Slashdot?
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
There are athletes being "enhanced" right now. In my opinion, although those certain biotech innovations are probably not realistically going to arrive in the mass market in just a few decades, perhaps the use of technology in the medicinal/health sectors will spur the development of new ways of practicing traditional medicine that may ultimately have the same effect as the sci-fi-ish inventions we dream about.
"In 2000, Everyone will have flying cars and take vacations to Saturn and have their robo-maid make breakfast!"
Any time I see nanotech discussed I always see someone panicing about "grey goo". Could someone please explain to me the whole "grey goo" phobia?
Gene Roddenberry predicted a war between enhanced humans and regular humans. Remember? Khan? And then there was another war like that later in the 21st century I think. Either way, both sides had significant casualties. I wouldn't be surprised if it actually happened, would you?
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
Most folks who get cancer, pak, ALS, alhemizers, and other terminal diseases died from them within a few years. Yet, this article is offering medical expectations that weren't even possible on star trek... Come on down to earth for the new year celebration.
Viagrabots!
Am I the only one who couldn't care less what happens to spectator sports? These technologies will have such a broad impact, the effect on spectator sports is very near to be one of the least interesting ones...
What would this mean for pilots, given the strict perfect vision/no eye damage requirements they have?
And, more importantly, when can I get razor blades that shoot out from under my fingernails?
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
I have a copy of 'The Age of Spiritual Machines' by Ray Kurzweil, and he essentially predicts that organic systems and bodies will be outmoded within a century. Personally, I find this vision disturbing, and am personally against add-ons that don't 'repair' the human body. I'm by no means religious, but there has to be some pride in using what was given to you by luck of the draw to the best of your abilities.
But full cyborgs are bound to exist sooner or later.
we said something similar....I want my colony on mars damnit!
Nanobots injected in our bloodstream will complement our immune system.
Actually, I do not think we will have a choice in the matter on this one. Before too long, there will be hostile (or just poorly designed and self-replicating) nanobots that will kill us when they get into our bodies. We will need some sort of immediate defense against this new threat; if anything, an outbreak caused by a malicious type of nanobot will spurn the development of the nanobot that complements our immune system and defends against the malicious nanobot. This sort of thing has long been addressed in science fiction novels, but it seems like something that is closer than we might imagine.
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
It's called Paralympics.
How much would all these implants cost? I could see them going for more than most people could afford.
...all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.'"
Judging by the number of athletes that get caught for using different kinds of doping substances at every major event, this is reality right now.
I have been wondering if we should do a split now; ie. have separate races for "boosted" athletes and another series for "traditional". The boosted version could have all kinds of medical companies as sponsors...Think of that bodybuilder with Pfizer tattooed on his muscles. Of course, life expectancy drops to around 30 years until the heart explodes, but at least you get famous.
Maybe they could even have separate points for "athletes" and "teams" like in motorsports. Teams would have loads of MDs coming up with better and more powerful stuff...
Since I really don't care about traditional sporting events at all, but this version might be fun to watch from an (bio-)engineering point of view.
Artificial muscles? Bionic eyes? If the name 'Genom Corp' or 'Brian J Mason' is attached to any of the patents, then by 2032 (or 2040, if you prefer) we might have more to worry about than athletes cheating at the Olympics!
You must think in Russian.
1) Augmented memory. No more forgetting names or passwords. Though it does add some real interesting issues for DRM (can you force me to forget a movie after remembering it X times)
2) Direct connect to the net - the ability to check GPS to figure out what I might be looking at, or the apocryphal doing google searches when asked a question would be very useful.
Just my .02 worth...
---
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a blog
"all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes"
I recall a comedian talking about performance enhancing drugs and the people who say it is ok for an athlete to enhance their performances with any means they can. His response was "Ok, you enhance yourself with steroids, I'll enhance myself with this motor car."
I am an athlete that is enhanced by being encased in metal in which my power is increased to several hundred hp.
PS: "happy new beer" "Crappy glue fear" "Snappy blue gear" whatever.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
As an interesting aside, I have said this before on Slashdot, but human eyes are pretty pathetic in terms of their sophistication. Birds, fish and many reptiles have much more sophisticated retinas that perceive what we would term a multi-spectral visual world. A visual scene much richer that the simple three-space world we currently see.
Evolution gives organisms the tools they need to survive, not necessarily what those organsims might put down on their wish lists. The ability to sense the world in such detail is much more important to the survival of those creatures than it is for human beings. This is a feature, not a bug. Since this is slashdot, I'm going to assume that you are very familiar with the epsiode in Star Trek where Kirk outmaneuvers aliens with vastly superior intellect and technology. How does he do it? In order to operate the Enterprise, these creatures had to fit themselves into human bodies which have senses that are much more hightened than those of their normal form. Kirk simply overloads their senses to the point that they can't think straight. Just yesterday we had an article here on slashdot about how people are having trouble dealing with the flood of new information available to them. Be thankful that our eyes are more limited than those of birds, fish, and their ilk. Our brains are already having trouble keeping up with the world around us. The day we start seeing in the IR and UV parts of the spectrum, that'll be all the more for us to process on a second-by-second basis.
Good luck with the research. I'm gratified to know that at least someone thinks that this technology should be used first to assist those who are disabled and then used to give super-powers to the rich. All too often medical research caters to stupid things like baldness cures instead of focusing on cures of cancer and Alzheimer's.
GMD
watch this
Thirty years from now, we'll use bionic eyes [...] science fiction? Not at all.
When you're making predictions about the future, hypothetical applications of current scientific research, you are making science fiction!
You can't take the sky from me...
Originally, the Eugenics Wars were set in the late 21st century (around 1996), according to "Space Seed." The war later in the 21st century was from a throwaway line in a DS9 episode, and a blatant attempt to make up for the fact that the Eugenics Wars didn't really happen. :)
Greg Cox has lately authored a good series of ST novels on the Eugenics Wars. He recasts it as a kind of "behind-the-scenes" thing centered around real life events. The enhancements to Khan and his bretheren mainly seem to focus on muscle strength and cognitive abilities, not necessarily any enhanced optics or anything the article's talking about. Perhaps designer gene modification to one's unborn offspring will become popular, but that would probably be far more dangerous than bionics.
Who cares about being able to bench cars? Admit to yourself how rarely this would be useful and grow as a human being.
Of course, usefulness has little to do with the first cybernetic implant on *my* christmas list in 2020.
The Mr Stud's Implant.
Every robot will have a 12" steel johnson.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I feel like I see articles like this all the time, and the underlying current is one of thinking that there are all these engineering breakthroughs that will make things that operate better than the native biological system. Engineers often tend to think this way, not unlike the carpenter who thinks the moon is made of wood. As a biologist, I may be somewhat guilty of the opposite bias, but the truth of the matter is that engineers have seldom been able to make materials and machines that operate as well as their biological counterparts. For example, artificial joints and teeth are all vastly inferior to their biological counterparts, and they will be for a while yet.
My point is that human enhancement will occur, but this article grossly underestimates the role molecular biology will have in the near future. For example, to make soldiers with more endurance, you could try replacing their blood with an artificial substitute, or you could give them recombinant erythropoeitin to increase their red blood cell count. The EPO injections are trivial (ask professional bicyclists), but after years and years of research, we still don't have an acceptable artificial blood substitute.
As far as artificial muscles go...that is just ridiculous. To think that in 30 years we will be implanting stuff like that into peoples' bodies. We will be growing muscle tissue in vats and implanting long before we deal with artifical stuff. However, first we will be using relatively simple methods to locally control muscle growth (like small molecule inhibitors of receptors for hormones that inhibit muscle growth, etc.) That alone will be huge.
I think the real lack of conceptual understanding has to do with the evolutionary perspective. Basically, humans are incredibly good at doing things that humans have to do in the wild, and the only easy enhancements that we can make are "enhancements" that actually decrease our fitness from the hunter-gatherer perspective. For example, stronger muscles require a huge food intake, so they're selected against. In this day and age, that's easy to get around, with steroids or other technologies. It's easy to increase endurance with EPO injections, but there are obvious problems (e.g. death) associated with that as well. People seem to think that it will be as easy to improve cognitive abilities or immune system function, but that's just wrong. Our brains and immune systems already operate pretty much at their optimum, and claims that we could simply inject "nanobots" that improve the function of either are ridiculously ignorant.
In thirty years slashdot will still be enamored with poorly researched, jargon infused, poorly written future-bation.
You'll see that some people are so convinced that this kind of human enhancements will happen that they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.'"
What's the difference between enhanced and unenhanced?
Isn't the athlete from a rich country with well-equipped training facilities, tailored nutrition and good trainers already an enhanced athlete compared to an athlete from some small 3rd world country?
This dichotomy to what constitutes enhancement and what doesn't smacks of a medieval perspective of the human condition.
Because I can't see across the friggin living room to the TV without my eyeglasses.....
Only on
I can go down to the local crystal shop as well and find people that are convinced the unicorns and fey folk are coming back - this doesn't make it any less fictitious.
Sadly, in this world, wishing don't make it so.
YLFIOne god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
I didn't RTFA (just the news story) and from what is covered there, just grab some steroids, cocaine and some over-prescribed glasses. No need to wait.
Karma: Neutered
What's even sadder is that you fail it.
is going to pay for all this?
Some 40 years ago there were scientists that believed we'd have flying cars and a sightseeing trips to mars by now.
My point is that you shouldn't believe everything you read.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
... I will need a new handle.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
Anyone read Prey by Michael Crichton? I don't think this is such a good idea. The last place I want nanobots is in my bloodstream.
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
think about it:
While enchancing atheletes physical abilities will result in more interesting sports, it will also affect the atheletes behavior.
If you make superhumans just to play games, and the atheletes now can't control their emotions, who's to say that the futurre will not lead to more devastating hockey fights and more bench-clearing and head-popping-off brawls.
God forbid a facemask call in football will be changed to something out of Mortal Kombat, with a lineman holding up a bloodied quartebacks' helmeted head, and, the scoreborad saying: Gruntsberger Sets New Record for Quarterback Decaps!
And, help us all, if the venues don't wall out the fans. A cyborged-up Ron Artest could wreak havoc even if the fans sneak in their beer cup cannon arm attachments.
On the brighter side, maybe the sport of curling would be more interesting because there wouldn't be a need for brooms, instead participants would use their lizardified tongues to flick the puck down the ice, or something like that.
Nonetheless, let the age of Mortal Kombat begin!!!!!!!
I suggest everyone read the book The Postman. The movie was loosely based on the book but leaves out the more interesting parts about human enhancements for military use and such. It's really quite a good book regardless to if you liked the movie or not.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I think that the human race has basically reached the point where we aren't controlled by natural selection. Thanks to modern medicine we can save people who are in serious car wrecks and such, people who would otherwise be alive. But we also save people who have problems of their own doing or genetics. People get organ trasplants who are born with otherwise debilitating (and therefor fatal in "caveman times") or fatal (as in actually fatal) problems. We can help people who get sick even if the virus would otherwise kill them (see smallpox, polio, etc.) We can even save (prolong the life of) people WITHOUT an immune system (AIDS/HIV). People who would in "caveman times" (to use the term again) never survive (300+ pound people, diabetics, etc.)
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should stop helping people if we have the technology (that would be cruel, thus the problem). But because of our ability to save so many people and all the problems that people can get through today, there is very little genetic pressure (IMHO) on humans. Only more extreme problems genetics works on. We also see things that natural selection would never cure (like Alzehimers) because people are living so long.
So it's a good thing that science will soon be able to improve things, because if we continue like this, what pressure is there to keep hemophelia from becomming common if we can find a cure for it (for example). I think this is one of the reasons that the eyesight of people seems to be declining. As glasses have gotten better and to be less of a problem (contacts, laser eye surgery), needed glasses at a young age isn't the problem it used to be (say 150-200 years ago). I think this is one of the reasons behind the "fatening of America" (although it's only a VERY tiny part, I think it's mostly a self-controll/diciplin issue).
Just something to think about. I don't think I species would get much better if we were permanantly stuck at our current technological level. I think the health of the average person would actually DECLINE.
The ability to have nano-bots that improve our immune system would be a great thing. Not only for those without it (AIDS/HIV/transplant paitents), but for normal people (never get sick, don't have to worry about Typhoid or Denge Fever or anything else, who needs a cure the nano bots could help). Things like that would be fantastic.
Although 30 years seems a little optomistic to me. I'd guess closer to 50.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
If so, I sure as hell don't want Microsoft providing it.
10. MPAA/RIAA still threating to sue people who file-share music
9. Where's the flying cars
8. Everyone still hates the U.S.A.
7. U.S.A. still looking for terrorists
6. Still no colony on the moon
5. 55 million people still can't believe Bush was re-elected in 2004
4. 59 million people still telling the 55 million people above to get over it.
3. New re-remake of Star Wars IV re-released. Han still doesn't shoot first.
2. Microsoft still hasn't fixed their problems with IE
And the number one Top 10 is....
1. Slashdoters still can't get a girlfriend
I'm not a doctor, but I play one in bed.
they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.
Why wait to split up sporting events? We already have certain athletes who are enhanced....
So you think it's science fiction? Not at all. You'll see that some people are so convinced that this kind of human enhancements will happen that they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.'
So something isn't fiction if people are really convinced that it will take place in the future? Is the present so unbearable that living in a fictional future, and needing others to join in, is the only way to get by?
Also, sporting events are already split up based on the use of "enhancements" (drugs): if you use 'em, you're not allowed in many of the events.
...and who's going to watch the non-boosted events? Will companies choose to sponsor the athletes setting records, or those who "just" take first place? Who will the networks cover?
Do you think that Major League Baseball is asleep at the switch, when they tell their players months in advance about an upcoming drug test, and 50+ players STILL get caught doping, and MLB does nothing? Do you think the government is asleep at the switch when they don't subpoena the hell out of MLB and throw every druggie baseball player into the slammer?
Phhbt. Dream on- MLB is thrilled at the doping. They "hate" it publicly, but privately they squeal like little children when Joe Dope smashes the baseball out of the park. Home runs and high scores bring in the crowds. Singles and scoreless games don't.
...And god forbid the government should interfere with baseball. It's a 'national pasttime'. It'd be like...messing with Apple Pie.
Please help metamoderate.
A new version of PunkBuster on-line cheat detector will detect when you are using bionic eyes for playing Quake XII with a FOV greater than 120.
My city: Barcelona.
I think a set of Olympics for enhanced athletes would be really interesting to watch (30-foot long jumpers, 8 second 100m runners, etc.), but I would never endorse such a venture because then many athletes would be tempted to throw their lives away and live as drug-testing animals with very little chance to survive.
I'd rather someone with that much determination take a more traditional path to success rather than sacrifice their life for entertainment.
True story.
IF this article is correct, this will have an interesting effect on jobs which require physical as well as mental characteristics. Everyone will be able to have 20/20 vision, the muscle and endurance to perform the most gruelling types of manual labour or pass the entry requirements for elite military forces, the physique necessary for certain types of "acting"* etc
*On this note, does anyone know how I could reserve the name Robocock?
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
Roland Piquepaille and Slashdot: Is there a connection?
I think most of you are aware of the controversy surrounding regular Slashdot article submitter Roland Piquepaille. For those of you who don't know, please allow me to bring forth all the facts. Roland Piquepaille has an online journal (I refuse to use the word "blog") located at www.primidi.com [primidi.com] . It is titled "Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends". It consists almost entirely of content, both text and pictures, taken from reputable news websites and online technical journals. He does give credit to the other websites, but it wasn't always so. Only after many complaints were raised by the Slashdot readership did he start giving credit where credit was due. However, this is not what the controversy is about.
Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends serves online advertisements through a service called Blogads, located at www.blogads.com [blogads.com]. Blogads is not your traditional online advertiser; rather than base payments on click-throughs, Blogads pays a flat fee based on the level of traffic your online journal generates. This way Blogads can guarantee that an advertisement on a particular online journal will reach a particular number of users. So advertisements on high traffic online journals are appropriately more expensive to buy, but the advertisement is guaranteed to be seen by a large amount of people. This, in turn, encourages people like Roland Piquepaille to try their best to increase traffic to their journals in order to increase the going rates for advertisements on their web pages. But advertisers do have some flexibility. Blogads serves two classes of advertisements. The premium ad space that is seen at the top of the web page by all viewers is reserved for "Special Advertisers"; it holds only one advertisement. The secondary ad space is located near the bottom half of the page, so that the user must scroll down the window to see it. This space can contain up to four advertisements and is reserved for regular advertisers, or just "Advertisers". Visit Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends (www.primidi.com [primidi.com]) to see it for yourself.
Before we talk about money, let's talk about the service that Roland Piquepaille provides in his journal. He goes out and looks for interesting articles about new and emerging technologies. He provides a very brief overview of the articles, then copies a few choice paragraphs and the occasional picture from each article and puts them up on his web page. Finally, he adds a minimal amount of original content between the copied-and-pasted text in an effort to make the journal entry coherent and appear to add value to the original articles. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now let's talk about money.
Visit http://www.blogads.com/order_html?adstrip_category =tech&politics= [blogads.com] to check the following facts for yourself. As of today, December XX 2004, the going rate for the premium advertisement space on Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends is $375 for one month. One of the four standard advertisements costs $150 for one month. So, the maximum advertising space brings in $375 x 1 + $150 x 4 = $975 for one month. Obviously not all $975 will go directly to Roland Piquepaille, as Blogads gets a portion of that as a service fee, but he will receive the majority of it. According to the FAQ [blogads.com], Blogads takes 20%. So Roland Piquepaille gets 80% of $975, a maximum of $780 each month. www.primidi.com is hosted by clara.net (look it up at http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index [networksolutions.com]) . Browsing clara.net's hosting solutions, the most expensive ho
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
If people don't want bionic will resistance be futile?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Wow.. I can wait to buy one of those bioengineered p3n1s from that spamming eMerchant and install it myself!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
WHERE'S MY GODDAMNED FLYING CAR???
It can't have escaped the more recreational of slash-dotters that our good /.spamming friend has recently gotten his hands on an old copy of Deus Ex and put all the enhancements, in order, into an article... can it?
Is there ANY way to stop this Pigpen, or whoever, from having his submissions taken seriously?
No, I thought not.
On the plus-side though, I can't wait to be able to launch a little 3rd-eye armed flyng drone from my own head. Or light-up eyes! That'd be greeeat.
Meta will eat itself
Geeks need dexterity for faster reactions, not zoom vision!
Leave it to a maladroit geek to invent something he know's nothing about!
You won't get this information from the mainstream media. According to too many $tvnews, $majornewswebsite, and $radionews broadcasters, the Catholic Church thinks that ALL stem cell research is bad (evil / will send one to hell).
i calAdultStemCells5404.pdf
4 01.htm
In fact, the Catholic Church teaches that fetal stem cell research is contemptable because those cells are derived from aborted babies.
The use of adult stem cells are OK, as adult organ transplants are OK, and adult stem cells are already in use in a number of cases.
Fetal stem cells are not.
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/bioethic/Clin
http://stemcellresearch.org/facts/treatments.htm
Quote from article linked below:
"Had a major heart attack? In the not-too-distant future, doctors may be able to use stem cells to regenerate damaged heart muscle. And here's the exciting part: They can do it using stem cells that aren't extracted from human embryos."
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/bioethic/fact
penis and breast enhancement comment?
Im guessing that medical ethics will come into play and that allot of implants will be a no-no unless they are to repair damage. Having said that, plastic surgery is pretty common place now most people know someone whos had a nose or boob job but mostly thats done to make someone look more 'normal' - a nose shaped like a bullet or size 50 breasts just look stupid so its slightly different than gettin extra vision. Also allot of enhancements will be genetic and that already has a pretty strict medical ethic.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I've got something else you can zoom... ah, I mean telescope. Definately telescope.
For many applications (such as the military) it seems an exoskeleton would be better turned into a robot proxy that sends sensory data to the person controlling it and receives control feedback. The person could be anywhere, over the next hill or a on another continent. This would give the benefits of an exoskeleton but allow the person controlling it to be away from danger (including that from the exoskeleton itself).
In recent years women's tennis has become as popular as men's tennis. Now part of that has been due to the "glamourization" of the female athletes, I admit. But part of the increased attention is due to people losing interest in the men's game. The men have gotten to the point where the serve is a very major component of the game. An increasing number of fans are getting sick of watching some guy bang a 130 mph ball past someone over and over. The number of hanging-on-the-edge-of-your-seat rallies in the men's game has dropped considerably over the years. Fans are turning to the women's game because there are more interesting rallies going on over there. I submit to you that this is evidence that people won't necessarily flock to enhanced sports. Those enhancements may make the game very boring to watch and the non-enhanced games may be more enjoyable.
And let's not forgot the possibility that public opinion of enhancement might sour considerably in the future. The death of one or more beloved athletes who died prematurely because of enhancement might turn the tide of public opinion from tolerance to anger. And in the father future, people who resent their enhanced co-workers who snap up all the promotions at work due to their superior abilities certainly aren't going to want to spend their meager paychecks watching more "enhanced freaks" on the weekend. We may yet see a serious backlash against enhanced people -- athletes and other.
GMD
watch this
We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
Three of Nine
I'm 52 and have cataracts (too much canoeing with cheap sunglasses on?). Anyone, one eye got bad enough to fix, so I got a Crystalens. It's not too bionic, but it's hinged and in addition to the expected 20/20 far vision, I should be able to train it to focus up close. It's already done wonders for my middle distance computer vision.
Instead of tatoos and other body mutilation, I'm pretty pleased with this sort of limited body enhancement.
Uebermensch's are the way of the future. Even without the advent of engineering feats we might be able to, one day, use the full potential of our brains thus truly giving rise to mind over matter.
On vision: In 1975 I asked my eye doctor why they didn't perform surgury on the eye to correct the lenses. I was told it was impossible to operate on the eye because of how delicate the human eye was. Well.... My thoughts on engineering a better eye are that, in some cases, the lens is removed and replaced by a new lens. If, instead of just replacing it with a tiny piece of clear plastic (or a new organic lens donated by someone else) why not replace it with a transparent autofocusing lens using the now emerging transparent transistors. The device would use a low level laser to detect if it were in focus (ie: auto correcting) and something like squinting could cause the zoom capabilities to be used. (Squinting causes the eye muscles to increase the tension across the eye's membrane.) Or maybe a person could be taught to turn on the zoom capabilities in some way (like rolling their eyes up and then back down).
Hearing is already augmented in several ways and our vision is helped at night with Night Vision googles, infrared, ultraviolet googles. These capabilities can be integrated into the lenses placed into eyes as well.
However, it is more likely, IMHO, that genetics will play a greater role in what happens in the future. This is because engineering something into the human body is a lot harder (in the long run) than simply changing what something is like. Let me give an example. Which was it easier to do: Create larger more sturdy bulls via some engineering feat or through selective breeding and the chemicals which causes the bulls to grow larger than before? Although engineering did play a role in how we have managed to enlarge cows and bulls (and many other species); the work of genetics and chemistry have done more. Therefore, although it is nice to think about this - it is more likely that chemists and geneticists are going to be the ones who affect us the most in the future than engineers.
Notes: The average milk cow is now so enhanced that they produce, on average, 40,000 gallons of milk per year. At a recent livestock show there were bulls which stood ten feet tall on all fours (ie:not reared up). Absolutely HUGE!!!!!
Also: The average person has built in regulators on the usage of their muscles. (In order to not break everything you pick up.) As has been shown, through the use of certain drugs (like Crack Cocaine) these "regulators" are removed. This is why some people (but not all) can be shot and still walk around as if nothing has happened to them. These same people usually require three to four other people to just hold them still. Obviously there are still things we have as of yet to tap in the way of musculature.
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
Yes, 116 Roland articles on /. this year. That's almost one every three days.
/.?
i que&author=&sort=1&op=stories
Seeing as the links are Roland's advertisement-laden page, is it any wonder people suspect a kickback to
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?tid=&query=roland+p
It was inevitable he would get one posted on 31 December. As predictable as death and Texas.
I'm looking for the technology NOW - not in 30 years that will allow us to live in a mode of sustainability, not of wizbang thingies that make us "enhanced".
Isn't it ironic that we have all this technology that allows us to do more, quicker - and have more free time to loaf about, but we're destroying the world, exploiting resources and people and a whole slew of other things in the process? Seems we can loaf about just as much by living simpler. I don't need implanted anything. I need a tree. Maybe a book. More likely, a loved one.
Not to sound cynical, but there seems to be a lot of smart people in the world - why are they all playing Halo 2?
Cheers,
Dada Mail - Program, Art Project or Absurdity?
One idea that I rarely, if ever, see addressed is that we may very well have seen the end of natural human evolution. Before you reject this idea, think about it for a moment.
I'm sure we all know how evolution works, by killing off the least efficient *versions* of our species and allowing the most efficient to breed.
Well, in first world countries anyways, EVERYBODY can breed, and live and breed again. In fact, one might argue that some of the most intelligent of our species either (a) have difficulty breeding (ahem) and certainly in many cases (b) breed later in the game. And (b) is just as significant for if one group breeds 50% more than another group, the former group becomes dominant.
Now, I'm not saying smart people necessarily breed less and that unsuccessfully people breed more and earlier but there has always been a cultural tie between career oriented people marrying later in the game.
And certainly, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of natural selection. Until the next epidemic comes out and wipes out the non-immune half of the population, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of natural selection going on anymore. I wonder how this will affect our species a thousand, ten thousand or hundred thousand years from now.
Perhaps these human augmentations are the new form of evolution for humans.
Sunny
Be my Friend
Using Google-Mind to search and "experience" other people's memory will drastictly alter the very concept of "individual".
I doubt stupid (and artificial) concepts such as "patentable intellectual property" will survive the process.
Anyway, i'll be part of a drm-free open-sourced mind-network. I'm confident in our collective problem solving skills to address those issues in due time.
As well as fucking moon bases and mars colonies.
Wake me up when I can get jacks implanted at Radio Shack, or buy a digital "camera" that comes in pill form.
Remember, the widget isn't here until all the ghetto-fabulous wastoids you run into in downtown have one.
"The Gentle Seduction" by Marc Stiegler ... read the title story. Definitely on the "must read list".
Publisher: Baen (June 1, 1990)
ISBN: 0671698877
and copter belts. We'll still be waiting for those, too.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Hi, I'm an ass who keeps attempting to post advertisments for my crappy blog on the Slashdot homepage. I try to pass them off as advertisments. Thankfully, it works! I'm making craploads of money from ads while spamming the Slashdot community! Someone, please stop me!
While there are some instances of life imitating art, what often ends up actually happening is that reality surpasses anything the artist might have originally imagined.
This looks to me to be little more than idle fantasy.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Not only is it not a new idea but, rather, it's an established fact.
In particular the part about "smart" people breeding less. If you define "smart" as "more educated" there's a direct correlation between a woman's education level and the number of children she will have.
Clear, Dark Skies
Until somebody makes nanobots that look like good nanobots, but are actually programmed to cause a blockage in the hearts blood supply, and then dissipate enough to avoid detection after the person dies.
...
I've thought about this before. We can't stop the dopers. What we can do is just throw up our hands, lay out rules for the "natural athletes" and have "unlimited" leagues.
The rules: You're caught doping, you're kicked into the unlimited leagues.
As you say, you'll have people who watch the "enhanced" events for the records, and you'll have people who watch the normal events for the more interesting, more "down to earth" plays.
Also, many of the better players will stay in the natural leagues, because their talents and that they don't desire to wreck their bodies as much. Professional (american)football, for example, wrecks player's bodies pretty badly even without steroids and such. They have the training to the point that you don't really need steroids, and muscle is much easier to strengthen than bone, or even more importantly, the ligaments and tendons.
Phhbt. Dream on- MLB is thrilled at the doping. They "hate" it publicly, but privately they squeal like little children when Joe Dope smashes the baseball out of the park. Home runs and high scores bring in the crowds. Singles and scoreless games don't.
MLB actually has a number of options to "balance" the game. Just how far out the outfield goes, the height of the pitcher's mound(measured to the 1/8 of an inch). On the other hand, I can be a conspiricy theorist and say that the backers want a bit of scandal to revive interest.
As for the advertisers, like has been said, I see the "enhancers" getting adverts from medical companies, while the sports equipment companies will split with both, but probably go heavy on the natural.
I don't read AC A human right
Withe the complexity of life, it just shows all the more that there is a master designer and creator.
I studied with Prof. Jim Collins at the BU Center for Biodynamics.
One of his most recent studies is into the study of introducing 'noise' to the feet of those with balance issues. He uses a random vibrating insoles to generate noise in the shoe, which (as his studies proved) is successful in helping the elderly maintain balance and control.
A very interesting and very current look into biodynamics and engineered enhancers.
"Go Go Gadget Legs!"
This particular issue always reminds me of the the definition of humanity, or rather, the effor to define what makes us human. If we could see, in IR, UV, Xray, etc. would we be more or less human? How would you describe such a scene with those eyes to a person without such visual abilities? Say one person has enhanced vision, enhanced audition, strength, cognitive abilities... would this person even be able to relate to the unenhanced human? Could this person even be called human? At what point does self-engineering so remove us from where we started that we become an entirely new life-form (think Vinge's Singularity posit with a twist.) And how does one define "vision loss"? Vision less than the norm? Does a 75 year old man with 20/100 vision have vision loss, even if he is within one standard deviation of the mean for people his age? How about the person with 20/20 as compared to the person with 20/10? I see that you are a vision scientist, but for those not familiar with visual acuity testing: 20/20 is only an AVERAGE. It is not as many people will say: "perfect vision." It is not uncommon for people to have better than 20/20. Which begs the question are these folk then judged to have "vision loss" as compared to there eagle eyed bretheren? As a person in the medical field I too am interested in technology that enhances a person's quality life and more importantly may reduce suffering. But while it may be easy to define medical need by looking at a child whom has a degenerative eye disease causing blindness, the questions becomes more difficult to answer when drawn to an extreme.
Boy, I can't wait until the CIA and other foreign agencies decide to use the technology to create super-viruses that are immune to anything but other nanobots.
If you don't like what he submits THEN DON'T READ IT, ASSWIPE. No one is forcing you to!
Dipshit jealous turdpie. . .
Third time's a charm, I guess. I am the original author of this investigation. It got modded +5 when I first posted it. Someone else posted it again and it got +5. This is the third time that it's been posted (that I am aware of), and it got modded -1. LOL! What's even more funny is that somebody else linked to the second post and got modded +5! Double whammy! LOL @ YOU! But thanks for trying to stand up against "the man". I don't think anything will happen, though. The editors obviously don't give a shit what we think. At this point in time I'd settle for a filter for Roland's "articles".
By 2004 we will all have nuclear cars, and electricity will be too cheap to meter. Computers? They will always be big and expensive. Yes I am sure they will be faster and better but they will still mostly be used by banks.
In 30 years things many things that we think will happen probably won't and something will probably come out of no where that will change our lives in ways we can't imagine. No one can really predict the future. The only thing I will predict is that people will still be people and we will still have death and taxes (well taxes at least.)
Can't wait till I can catch a game on ESPN.
Blernsball The Earthican past time featuring mandatory steroids.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
...Will we have flying cars?
I know that sounds harsh, but so many of us just sit around and let our bodies slowly degenerate. Then we look to science to make us super-human again. I've got news for you, it's amazing what the stock, off-the-shelf human is capable of. Three years ago I decided to "hack" myself - good foods, ton's of best-practices power and HR based training (running, swimming and cycling). The result? I lost 60 lbs, and last year I rode my bike 328 miles in 24 hours and ran a 40 mile ultra-marathon on dirt trails. Most of my coworkers think I'm some uber-athlete, but the truth is I just got off my ass and put my body to the use it was intended.
Sure, you keep telling yourself that.
I'm also concerned that with current limitations on stem cell research, there may be unjustified delays in scientific advancement. I think we are more likely to see a scenario like the one portrayed in Gattica where genetic knowledge allows parents to use scientific services to select more desirable children. Remember the old saying: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Look at the world we live in -- the corporations have become the new ruling elite. That leaves government officials as court partisans and the lowly masses (us) as serfs in a corporately controlled society.
I think we also must take all these reports with a grain of salt for obvious reasons. I'm sure some people on slashdot are old enough to remember scientists claiming we'd have hover cars or even moon colonization by 2000. The fact is nobody can predict what the future holds with 100% certainty. We can make predictions based on trends, but true advancement often comes from serendipitous chains of events beyond our current ways of thinking.
Faster isn't necessarily better...
My eyesight is fine. A little reading difficulty, but I can still hit a baseball.
However, can we please apply all of this engineering to:
Peripheral neorupathy. It's a bitch to see your toes and not feel them.
Solve that and we've got a winner- there's less and less that I really want to see everyday.
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
I PREDICT IN 2006 WE WILL ALL HAVE --; INSTEAD OF HANDS http://www.hammerrevolution.com/
Only 96 years to go!
Jesus is cumming, Spit or swallow?
Oh man, J.C. Denton here I come.
What you just saw was a typical example of the "romantic primitivism" meme. Blame any unexplained problem on the sin of thinking and its byproduct, technology. All that manmade stuff is icky and polluting and makes people squint and go blind, because it's not "natural".
Slapping such idiocy down in the name of real science is doing the world a favour.
Latest ph33r sphincter exploit brought to you by the Fr33 Teh Humans Kru.
http://www.micro-soft.ca/ Support Linux Clothing
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
...towards cyborging? AFAIK technical improvement leads to a complementation of the thing supported.
... Well, then let's improve the nano immune system a bit. ... And so on. I think, that could make Cyborgs out of everyone of us.
For example: Today cars are save as never before. But the death toll is still high. I.e. it didn't sink that much as it was expected. I assume that this isn't limited to systems where cognition plays a role.
If so, then a immune system support by nanobots could lead to a weaker (biological) immune system. What to do then?
The idea that nanobots will enhance our capabilities out of the box is flawed. Here's why:
1) The security issues surrounding nanobots have not even started along the path to fruition. One of the problems that comes with creating nanobots is securing them. As past history has shown, flaws that allow compromises in new technology are rampant as it is. Injecting nanobots is going to be risky for the sake of a "hostile takeover" of their control mechanisms.
2) Flaws. It's yet to be determined if there will actually even be "enhancements" from cybernetic changes to the human body. Devices now that let the blind see also have negative side effects of which the depth of such cannot even be described. What is to happen if in throwing a baseball the stress involved will cause a player to hurl the object at 150 mph instead of a more adequate 90 mph? What then, if there is a death because of a stress-related injury?
3) Longevity. The current problem with creating devices that run on little or no power is that they still need an energy source. Supposing there were thousands of nanobites required to make an olympian do a one-foot higer long jump. Where is the power going to come from if not the individual? If they are power by battery and die out, then are they really aiding the player in any way?
4) Along the lines of the above, it is obvious that steroids give players a "nanotech-like" advantage. Yet, steroids are illegal. Why then, would nanotechnology be fair use in any game? Who is to say that world governments will not ban their use from their inception do to safety concerns?
i won't be happy
until i get a pair
of robot-laser eyes.
-w
I was kind of hoping that 30 years from now professional spectator sports would be dead.
If you wish to believe in a creator, that's fine, but please do not mislead others into thinking that such beliefs are supported by science.
An Enhanced cheater would rather compete against the Non-enhanced, since then he could grab all the golds. You'd still have all the problems we have today detecting cheaters. So there'd just be another category for people who *want* to compete as Enhanced, whether or not they really are Enhanced.
Such beliefs are not refuted by science, either.
Science cannot currently explain why even disorder would come about into existence. That's not to say we should go about speculating, but please do not mislead others into thinking that science can disprove creationism. Creationism isn't a scientific claim (in the strictest, positivist sense).
At any rate, believing in a creator would not be fine if one did not exist. It should lead to all sorts of scientific errors.
Thirty years from now, we'll use bionic eyes giving us 'zoom vision' for faster reactions.
.WAVs were the way to go (OK, a few hardcore BBS dudes still thought .MODs and .S3Ms were going to make it) -- now we laugh in their general direction.
Yeah, for the wealthy, and even then, only *maybe*.
I LOL in your general direction on that prediction generally, though, because most people haven't any directly-obvious use for "zoom vision." People in the military, yes; most civilians, no.
Nanobots injected in our bloodstream will complement our immune system.
More believable than the first, but again, still unlikely. It's possible for very basic medical problems, but otherwise, the AI and robotics engineering required for such nanobots would be beyond affordability for most people, even the rich. Hence, such technology is likely to be still in the trial phases at that point.
Artificial muscles built with electroactive polymers will help us to be stronger and faster.
Oh? And who exactly has a need for this technology?
Sports players and those in physical-security sectors (i.e., police, military, and private security) -- that's it. Does Joe Coder in the cubicle need to be able to intercept a pass 0.2 sec. faster? No. Does Joe Steelworker need to shoot a 3-pointer 0.1 sec. faster? Hardly.
You have a (predicted) solution in search of a need. History proves that unless the demand is directly-attributable to the supply, the demand meeting that supply is not as strong as the predictions had suggested. For example, few people predicted the rapid expansion of MP3 usage until Napster came along, but by that time, the genie was out of the bottle; any dumbass could see that MP3s were the way of the future in terms of music file formats. Prior to that, most people thought RealAudio or
Hence, today, people continue to be amazed at the ease and convenience of MP3s and the fruits of the services which sell MP3-quality audio for around $1 a song. Such "wonders" would almost certainly never have been predicted 10 years ago.
So you think it's science fiction?
Like flying cars, the shorter work-week enabled by ever-advancing computer technology, and so forth, largely-speaking, yes, I do.
You'll see that some people are so convinced that this kind of human enhancements will happen that they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.'"
Just because techno-ideologues are convinced of something doesn't make them correct, any more than the ideologues of any political view make them right.
History, in fact, proves futurists to be morons. They have nice ideas, but inevitably, the inconveniences of reality -- the laws of economics which demand that there be a need for a dreamed technology, the laws of politics which demand that a given technology not cause religious wackos to believe it the sign of the devil, and the laws of a particular technology itself, which limit the growth of that technology -- all prevent the dreams of techno-ideologues from becoming reality within the specified timeframes.
My advice to the futurists of the world is to study economics and look for a strong demand for their dreams. Only then will they have a credible case for their arguments that people will adopt their dreams at X point in time. In any case, I encourage futurists to lag their dreams by at least 100% -- most techno-dreams tend to come later than predicted, often twice as long as predicted, if that.
Duke Nukem Forever, for instance, was supposed to arrive in 1997 or 1998 by PC Gamer's watch, after Duke Nukem 3D was released in 1996; now it's 2005 and where is DNF? Still in development, to be released "when it's done."
In short: welcome to real life, techno-dreamer.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
of humanoids trying to show how much plastic they can pack in their muscles... I'd rather see nano-technology kill cancer cells and repair brain damage in those who come up with crap like having Droid-olympics..... that's utter cheating!
And now for my own prediction: I work in artificial intelligence, and I predict that with the right amount of funding, we will have developed real AI, that rivals and extends upon human AI, by 2035. This AI will be so wise and have so much knowlwedge, that it will provide a solution to all the world's problems within minutes. And it will be our obedient servant, too! The world will become a paradise! Now give me a couple of millions to starts with, please.
The BBC program Tomorrows World came out with the classic line By the year 2000 computers will make the use of paper obsolete. This one is only really matched by the idea that in the 21st century, machines will be doing all the work and we'll have much more leisure time.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
So you think it's science fiction? Not at all. You'll see that some people are so convinced that this kind of human enhancements will happen that they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.
The second sentence says it's not science fiction, while final does. Make up your mind...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I heard of this technique that sharpens your cornea so much that you have something like better than 20/1 vision. You vision can get so crisp that you may eventually see jaggies, because the resolution of your cornea will be better than the resolution of your actual retinal cells. Pretty cool, though I wouldn't want to see jaggies, so I'd opt for vision just below that level of clarity.
So you think it's religious fiction? Not at all. You'll see that some people are so convinced that this kind of massive destructions of the earth will happen that they predict than in a few decades, all heathens (and illogical people using bad grammar) 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced news replays.'
"Anyone who thinks that all athletes in the future will remain naturally endowed is living in a fantasy world."
And you thought it was about athletic performance.
Take a look at, say, Popular Science from 1975 to see what this year was supposed to be like, before you bet too much on 30-year technology predictions.
Some of it will happen, and some of it will still be 30 years away (or more!), by 2035. And there'll be some significant stuff that nobody predicted, or could have.
"Where are the flying cars? Where are the floating cities?" -- Calvin
"...they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.'"
How about "enhanced Slashdot editors"?
Nah. It'll never happen.
anyone watch the para olympics imparticular the guy with 1 prosthetic leg who could have won a grey hound race nevermind the 100 metre sprint or whatever it was frankly that leg he had was trully enhanced and that technology can only get better.
I Predict A Riot
I've been following nanotrends for a while, and I'm sure some ppl will agree with me: While nanotech discoveries are going amazingly fast, the research is also awfully slow.... I've read some technologies "will be available from 5 to ten years". I tend to compare nanotech with the electronics in the 70's. But don't think it'll go as fast... the transistor triggered a huge advance, but all advances are based upon this element. Nanotech is too wide. What's holding nanotech is the manufacturing methods. It's not "ok we know how this works in theory but we need 5 years to build the infrastructure". No, instead it's like "ok how the heck can we make this work?". A single discovery required to speed up nano-researc usually takes about 6 months... and we need LOTS, LOTS of them to actually see something.
Here are some of my observations regarding nanotech development:
a) There needs to be a "factory stage" for nanotech production methods, and this is the part that is slow. We're still in the "test tube nanochemistry" stage.
b) Nanobots are WAY, but WAY too far. Most of the nanotech being developed right now are passive constructs (nanotubes, etc). And people are still having problems on how to attach them together.
Add to that the toxicity studies, the 2 to 5 years tests in rats, monkeys, etc... I give them 40 to 50 years when practical (still specialized, non-reprogrammable) nanobots are really out. (The logic will have to be hard-coded, there's no other way when you're dealing with nanoscale. Artificial nanobot-based "cells"? Hmmm now that's a possibility, but not short or mid-term. Maybe in 30 years there'll be a slashdot story on "the first artificial cell manufactured" or something. And it will say "the technology will take from 10 to 20 years to be produced in mass scale".
c) Electroactive muscle enhancers? Hmmm I don't think so. I tend to favor the "Artificial limbs", tho. With the recent discovery of elastic metal compounds, I do see that in 10 to 20 years practical implementations of artificial muscles will become a reality. There goes practical prosthetics. But I bet they'll be suboptimal in comparison with human muscles. Or maybe more efficient, but not to the point of the "6 million dollar man".
On the other hand, mech-styled armors (a-la "Bublegum crisis") may become a reality... but even in 30 years, i bet they'll still be experimental, and part of government projects.
d) One thing I'm inclined to believe in are brain-machine interfaces. But I wouldn't count on "drawing images with the brain"... at least not until 70 years.
e) What I do think is that there will be enormous advances in genomics. What I call the "cold chip era" will come, allowing people to mass manufacture 3D-layered cpu's (not 2D as we have right now), with near-superconductivity efficiency (if not optical). Maybe spintronics will be the base of all logic.
This will enable great speed in the genomic research. Along with nanotech, we'll see machines which will clone organs and such.
Oh yeah, don't forget the neural bypass surgeries, I'm sure they'll take about 48 hours for a complete recovery.
f) Combining d) and e), maybe we'll see hyper-reality robots in military applications, controlled by remote control, with brain interfaces. The guy will see what's going in his environment (maybe with connections to the optical nerve, maybe with just 3d goggles or something) and he'll do the moving, etc. I'm also sure that there will be some sort of neural disease associated with VR... brain overload maybe?
In conclusion, to see all the advances predicted in the article, I think it's much safer to speak of 50 years or more.
Thirty years from now, we'll use bionic eyes giving us 'zoom vision' for faster reactions.
For now, we just have to settle for penis-enhancement scams.
Come on people, its all spelled out for you. Stop it before it is too late!
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Don't these nerds realize that they are making their bully's faster/stronger?
He is not an optometrist. He is a scientist. He has a PhD. He works in a lab. He has a web page. Look at it and find out who he is and what he does. Optometrists and vision scientists are different breeds.
Many many people die from Renal failure every year, and many die from Dialysis related infection and disease.
d oc ID=522180
I whole-heartedly support this... as do many others who live from one kidney or have failing kidneys.
Some day I suspect we'll have very cybernetic humans running about, with the main competition being between the "hardware based" people and the "bio-engineered" people, looking for better/faster ways to fix it.
Check out the work being done in this area, here:
http://www.med.umich.edu/intmed/humes/
And a recent story about testing of it, here:
http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?
Oh my gawd, they killed kenny's mod points!!!!
I am interested in the idea of augmenting the human brain with enhancements that would allow the subject to be able to possibly assemble memories and ideas better. It would amazing to use the human mind as a storage bank for memories and such in an organized database that was cataloged much better than our own memory does. We could cross reference certain ideas and memories and furthermore, probably export them to other people saying they stored the ideas or thoughts in the same manner in the beginning.
I have ideas of hooking myself up to a computer wirelessly via BlueTooth or preferably a more secure method of wireless technology not so prone to security or signal interference. If it had to be hard wired or jacked in that would be fine as well. There has been recent research as far as creating an energy source from a slight temperature difference in the body. You would put a device that creates this energy source at that point and it would power the rest of the electronics in the human body just fine. You could easy integrate a cell phone, mp3 player, or a GPS into such a system and put a form of display into the eye as a visual feedback system. If the feedback system was actually implanted as a third eye if you will into the brain, that would be amazing as you could suddenly literally change the feed of the third and the depth of realism as well. You could close your eyes, focus on the fake third eye in your head (only see through the third eye or full 360 degree spherical vision input as it where) and be in a complete 3-D environment that you might be able to feel as well if you decide to program the touch response systems as well. Interactive gaming would be at its best. This would also allow for very interesting security issues such as someone trying to hack into your mind or steal a memory or try to plan a memory, depending on how integrated the main Biocomputer device was.
The wireless transmittal of information in and out of the brain would allow for much fast integration with computers and management of code, ideas, information, as well as communication with other people. I have thought that such a system would inevitably allow you to chat or communicate with more than one person at a time. If the chatting were visual, as it would probably have to be, then you could communicate with probably 20 to 50 people at the same time. If the chatting where vocal, then it would be simply how many different audio streams you can differentiate at the same time. For some people, they are able to pick out a flute and a few other instruments in an orchestra as they are playing in unison. The trick would be of course for the human mind to pick out and understand interactive data in multiple streams at the same time. I have only tried to talk on two different phones with two different people at the same time once or twice, but managed to do it pretty well for a short period of time. It would be interesting to see what is capable as far as an in brain communication system to the amount of understood conversation that would be possible. You wouldn't have to just have conversation either. You could share images and possibly even feelings over such a system. Imaging learning how to fold a paper crane and then teaching everyone that accepted the learning around you how to do it in mere seconds. They would have the building blocks to, they could restructure the folding process and figure out how to fold their own result. If the learning that you sent someone was more than just the moves required, but included the idea behind the moves (such as not just the source, but the source with ALL of the commenting) and could rebuild those moves. Teaching would be revolutionized as just as someone that paints a picture can share the image, and someone's interpretation is up to how they view it, someone sharing how to develop a program with the source and reasoning in the logic in mere seconds with another programmer, could be completely rethought in minutes as he has all of the preprocess beforehand and
Jonny5 'ko derf'
Imagine if you could run to work at an average speed of 30mph, there would be no more need to use poluting petrol driven vehicles, cars would only be use for very long distances. everyone would be able to commute to work by running. it would also mean no more obesity, as energy would still be consummed from the body.
cool, you'd just have to wait 10 years or so to see which "enhancements" kill you within such timeframe and which limit themselves to addicting you to their use for diminishing effects forever..
It is a well-known side effect of viagra to cause problems with color perception, usually described as a blue tinge. The effect is only temporary though.
Won't happen,
Pfizer will try to sale a drug.
Microsoft will try to write the OS.
EA will have the rights to the video games available.
Sorry but I don't want no shit these people sale.
You'll be seeing blue, having chest pains, and feel rather screwd out of your health insurance.
Remember Sentinel Worlds? ITs an Old game.
It had a section where you found, easter egg.
Full of EA Rowdies carrying nurf cannon.
r0r!