U.S. Soldiers Recipients of Newest Prosthetic Technologies

plaastik writes "The next generation of naturalistic and touch-sensitive artificial limbs are being worn by U.S. Soldiers. Instead of the old velcro strap and cup these new models are fused directly to the bone and are controlled by controlled by the wearer's brain. From the article: 'Future prosthetic arms will fuse to existing bone, eliminating the need for awkward attachment systems. These more naturalistic limbs will use bionic nerves attached to natural nerves to send and receive signals from the brain. Chips embedded in the user's brain will help command artificial-muscle-activated, touch-sensitive, fully articulating hands.'"

Comments

Re:Fully articulating hands?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctor, will I be able to play the violin after this operation?

Yes. I expect so.

That's amazing. I couldn't play at all, before.

Cost?

[leipzig3]

This sounds like great technology but what is this going to cost? An arm and a leg?

Thank you, I'll be here until Wednesday. Please tip your waitress.

This just seems like a win for everyone!

[TomRitchford]

The soldiers get exciting new limbs instead of the boring old ones they had before.

The Iraqis get killed and get to get their country destroyed.

And we the taxpayers get to piss away a trillion dollars. Did you need that money? You would have just wasted it selfishly on yourself!

I guess the only people who lose are Halliburton because they actually have to do some work. No wonder they mark up all their services 100%, who can blame them? What patriots!

Re:economies of scale

[NickFortune]

I'm surprised at how many naysayers are on this forum, possibly conditioned to believe that spiderman villains are villainous because they didn't get their superpowers "naturally".

It's that Otto Octavius I blame. If he'd stop knocking over banks, and work to raise awareness of the potential benefits of his research, the cybernetics field would be a lot further forward, I feel.

There may be benefits to complete prosthetic bodies which have capabilities superior to flesh and blood

Are you sure you're not just a Cybus Industries shill? John Lumic's full body prosthesis process may look impressive, but there are a few bugs in the system I'd want to see addressed before I got myself upgraded. Although his airships are pretty cool.

As for concerns to losing your humanity, it's not who you are inside, but what you do that counts.

Never mind the loss of individuality, I'm waiting for a design that can withstand a little man stepping out of a blue box with a flashing light on top. Until he gets that problem licked, I really can't see any future for the design.