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Computer Control, by Bug and by Brain
electric_mongoose writes "NewScientistTech has a fascinating story about a paralysed man who can control a computer and robot arm using electrodes implanted in his brain. The electrodes measure neural signals generated when he concentrates on trying to move one of his paralysed limbs and software translates these imagined gestures into the movement of an on-screen cursor or a robotic arm. Other researchers have also revealed a way to dramatically boost the efficiency of similar brain implants in monkeys."
If you don't have a handy human brain to play with, 9x320 writes points to a report on LiveScience of Wim van Eck's graduation project: a computer game similar to Pac-Man controlled, not by conventional computer code, but by the brain of an insect. From the article:"Instead of computer code, I wanted to have animals controlling the ghosts. To enable this, I built a real maze for the animals to walk around in, with its proportions and layout matching the maze of the computer game. The position of the animals in the maze is detected using colour-tracking via a camera, and linked to the ghosts in the game. This way, the real animals are directly controlling the virtual ghosts."
Judging by the way this (and related) technology works, wouldn't it be possible to augment a completely healthy adult with a computer? Obviously, this is something that could only be tested on humans. While other animals may be capable of thought, we cannot directly communicate with them enough to instruct them to make a "trivial"# thought repeatedly for a computer to "learn" the signal. We, however, do possess the ability to make a "trivial" thought repeatedly. Perhaps something like this would one day lead to computer-assisted telepathy. So far though, the biggest hurdle is that, at present, the computer interface is mainly read-only.
# A "trivial" thought in this context would be one that does not correspond to a normal physical action by the body. (Such as articulating a second set of arms, or "typing" without a keyboard by thinking of making the letters appear on screen)
This would be a really neat interface for musical instruments.. just imagine, hook your head to a set of speakers and ROCK OUT! In all seriousness, If this ever becomes a mature and pervasive technology, the applications are limitless.. imagine a wi-fi brain control unit with an open-source API... Control anything with your brain!
Development of these devices is actually a fun little field for a lot of electrical & computer engineering students who decide they want to do something else.
A couple years ago I toured one of the research labs at Michigan where they were developing these electrodes and the algorithms they're using to interpret the impulses... At least half of the lab were ex-EE students who decided they wanted to do biomed for grad school.
The scary part was that it was these same EE students who were running around performing basic brain surgery on rats. The amazing part was that if you stuck the electrode anywhere in the correct general area it would "just work" without needing to worry about hitting exact nerves, etc.
Between this and the cortical pre-conscious response story earlier today, I look forward to getting my Wired Reflexes I cyber implant. Still waiting on the datajack, though.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.