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Remote Control for Humans?
FatMacDaddy writes "The SFGate is reporting on a remote control for manipulating humans through electrical stimulation of the inner ear nerves.The author of this article describes his experience with having a "remote control for humans" device used on him. The developers hope to use this with video games and other entertainment, but it might also be used as a weapon to disable people. An interesting read with perhaps some disturbing implications. Better get a second layer on those tinfoil hats!"
In a sense all humans have always been "remote controlled": biologically and socio-culturally.
These "remote controls" are actually extremely sophisticated.
I wonder who holds the patent on them.
It might not be usable as a weapon really, but it could conceivably be used on prisoners, for example. Or, for that matter, on suspects who're not willing to cooperate during an interrogation.
I'm not sure about you, but I feel distinctly uncomfortable with both these scenarios.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
But you could choose to defy the gun or the whip (albeit with potentially dire consequences; nonetheless, the choice still exists). You might not be physically *able* to defy this gizmo.
If such a device were available in a high-powered, long-range model (defined as a few hundred metres) then crowd control might be possible whether the crowd consented to be controlled or not -- just make them all wobble off in the desired direction.
Warfare becomes a matter of "He with the strongest broadcast, and/or the best tinfoil hats, wins".
Bank being robbed? No problem, just turn on the brain buzzer and make everyone in the building fall helpless to the floor. Then when the tinfoil-hat-equipped cops arrive, they can sort out the perps from the customers. Of course, smart crooks soon arm themselves not with guns, but rather with tinfoil hats.
Meanwhile, some folk hit by these brain-buzzers are permanently damaged, and spend the rest of their days careening in circles.
Farfetched, yeah, but such are the logical extensions, given sufficient broadcast power.
Best of all, chainmail headgear could come back in fashion!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I did get an interesting effect from it: due to the high resistance of my skin I have to turn the device WAY up to get any response and during the strongest pulses, I saw flashes of light that were not present outside of my optic nerve(it wasn't arcing in other words).
Anyway, as I read the article, it's less about remote control humans and more about being able to affect what they are feeling which is scary but with this version they'd have to sneak up on you and covertly put these things on your skull...with good electrode contact..and probably lube to prevent burning. If it does use the same technology as what I have then you need to know that there are 3 different ways(at least) that we sense motion and the inner ear is only one. The other two are visual and the type of feeling you get in your joints when you accelerate on, say, a bus; this is aka proprioceptive I think. If they didn't have something that would give you a slightly harder time to keep your balance(we used the Tempurpedic(tm) memory foam because it shifts acording to the weight and temperature. Without this, you don't feel any shift in your joints so if your visual environment didn't move either, you'd mostly discard the signal. It's because of the "rule" of 'virtual reality': you have to fool 2 of the 3 ways we sense motion for the brain to accept it as real. And despite all this, with a slight amount of concentration, you can see through the illusion. Maybe what they have is different..I'll have to research to find out now.
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Most anyone (here (I'd hope)) can build a working galvanic vestibulator in their home for under $5. It's just a 0.1hz~70hz squarewave sinking ~20 milliamps of current through your neck. You can easily do that with a 555 in astable mode (R1=2kOhm,R2=26kOhm,C=.1uF--it'll have a frequency of about 27hz and a duty cycle near %50), a 9v battery or two, some pennies, cotton, and a bit of saltwater. Place the ghetto electrodes beind your ears. Play with the frequency in the above range by using knob potentiometers. I've found ~15-30hz to be best.
Even more fun can be had with a cheap Atmel ATtiny2313 8bit microcontroller (or PIC if you're that type). They cost about ~$2 each but you can sample them from large manufacturers for free (I've sampled 9 ATtiny2313 for free now). They can be programmed right from the serial port in simple (you can ignore the LEDs, but hey leave them in and you have a persistance of vision toy too), or slightly less simple manners.
If you just want to test the effect out then just the 9vs, a few pennies, some cotton, salt water, and a little wire will do. Simply series the batteries and make electrodes out of the materials previously mentioned, warm water works best. Apply the electrodes to your mastoid proccesses and you'll feel the 'acceleration'...and a bit of stinging, but not too bad. (It'd be best if you had a soldering iron, but you could go without if really needed.)