Slashdot Mirror
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!"
I guess it could be used as a weapon... if you could convince everyone to wear the required head-gear all the time...
they're called breasts.
This is old news from a few months back: http://www.forbes.com/business/innovators/2005/08/ 04/technology-remote-control-humans_cx_lh_0804remo tehuman.html
Obligatory Family Guy quote follows:
Stewie: Good day, shopkeep.
Chris: Good day shopkeep, I require a hand-operated buzzsaw capable of cutting through a human sternum.
Shopkeep: What?
Chris: It's for a school project, I'm some sort of student sent here for... oh blast what the devil do they study? uh... Latin class.
Shopkeep: Uhh, sorry kid, I can't sell power tools to minors.
Chris: Now look here you gore-bellied codpiece. Allow me to purchase the provisions I demand or I'll form your blue collar into a red one and-
Who the deuce are you? No I don't have any spare change. Where the hell would I keep it? In my diaper? Get out of here you hobo. Oh bloody hell, is this thing still on?
"An interesting read with perhaps some disturbing implications." I'll say - what if you lose it?
I hate the one hundred and twenty character limit for signatures with an all-enveloping, all-destroying, incredible pass
Wives had had this for their husbands for years now.
Sounds a little too much like, http://www.hackcanada.com/homegrown/wetware/ to me. However, its not so much remote, you have to be sitting right in front of the device, literally wearing it. But it opens your eyes to the implications.
- Aetheral Research -
Back in my day we used to use remote controles on cars.
That episode of Star Trek where those aliens steal Spock's brain. Scotty rigs up a remote control for Spock's body and they all beam down to the planet to search for it. Just goes to show you that all important modern tech was first shown on Star Trek.
Imagine the implications of this with the adult entertainment industry!
Now that's entertainment!
Does it have a volume control? Can you calobrate it to my girlfriend? How soon can you get it to me? and here's all my money!
serenity now!
Evil, sure - but who are you calling a genius?
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
"Better get a second layer on those tinfoil hats!"
Or just don't put on the headgear that controls you.
Either way, I'm not going to work at any job that requires me to wear this remote control, unless it's wireless. Wearing headgear all day with a wire attached would probably give me a sore neck by causing restricted head movements.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I, for one, welcome our new inner-ear remote-control overlords.
A mute button for the folks would have been handy when I was a teenager...I'd be a much better guitar player today...
Previously reported on slashdot too.
I mean just wait till the BSDM community gets hold of this!
Sony had something similar, but not as capable, as this a year or so back. And it's still vaporware, unless "They're working out bugs."
Forget the second tinfoil layer, people. Be content in the fact that until you willingly strap a device to your head, you're safe.
Ignore the fact that I'm drunk right now, but I will *NEVER* put one of these things on my head. I'll stick with "subliminal messages thru sneaky frames included in films.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Consider the effects of a gun at your back, or even the slave driver's whip :-/
Scientific American had a very interesting article on the history of this sort of thing. Unfortunately, you probably have to pay for that article if you don't already subscribe.
Daaaamn, and here I thought I was simply drunk and listening to headphones...
You mean that's NOT Corrosion of Conformity in my head?!
in order to weaponize this system, you'd have to figure out how to attatch electrodes behind the lobes of someone's ears at range -- and i challenge anyone to figure out how to do THAT. As it stands, vestibular stim is a cool new idea on how to improve balance control in risky environments (high iron construction workers faced with strong winds?), or the elderly and people with some form of vestibular impairment. I know of at least once case of essentially permanent dizziness, in which the patient suffered an accident that took out half of the vestibular system, so he is only getting feedback from one side of his body.
As a student at one of the big universities where balance control and vestibular control is studied -- let me be the first to say that all of this is HIGHLY alpha. At best, it's proof-of-concept only. I wouldn't be worried about being "remote controlled" -- but hey, add this to a VR sim and things might get better than the crappy sim software/hardware that we've had since the mid90's -- or do some of the stuff i mentioned above.
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
We should get the whole 'local control' thing down first.
---
Aria Giovanni for President!
Are you...Are you some kind of genius?
No, ma'am, I'm just a regular Slashdot reader.
Didn't try it because of the really long line. It was probably the coolest thing in the Emerging Technologies area. Anyway...basically it can make you drift left or right while walking by messing with your sense of balance ( inner ear ). People were dramatically affected at first but many people were able to compensate after only a few seconds. While cool, it is hardly as dramatic as the article would suggest.
Yeah, I parsed this thing as "Remote Control [designed] for Humans." I was thinking "Great! Finally I can program that VCR."
Sadly, it's just another tool for turning excess humans into golems. Sigh.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Please take the time to consider these and other reasons to treat alluminum foil as a reasonable, effective form of alternative preventitive medicine for everyone's mental well-being.
-apt
"medieval students were no less manic-depressive, riot-prone, or financially indignant than their modern counterparts"
You just need to fashon a tinfoil had that has those very attractive ear flaps.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
Remote control allows for more efficiently slavery.
Research done at MIT shows that tinfoil hats actually amplify government mind control beams. Because they are not fully enclosed, they actually end up acting as a sort of antenna. Yes, that's right: Wearing a tinfoil hat is exactly what the shadow government wants you to do!
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.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
I saw this some time ago (august 5) on Engadget. That story also linked to a movie of a remote controlled girl.
Enjoy.
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.)
Obligatory (mutilated) Futurama:
Leela: "Didn't you have remote controls in the 20th century?"
Fry: "Well sure, but not for humans! Only for tv and radio...and stereos...and DVD Players. And for air conditioning, blinds, and toy cars, and Robosapiens, and banana label machines, and Nintendo. But not for humans! No sirree."
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Who's laughing now? [Tick... tick... tick...]
You must think in Russian.
Just as long as no-one uses this technology to make me do something gross, like eat a tarantula (a la Red Dwarf...)
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.