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Scientists Develop Cyborg Interface Algorithm
StCredZero writes "A ZDNet article discusses advances in the translation of brain activity to electronic control being made at MIT. Their approach allows a paralyzed individual to manipulate a prosthetic - but that's not the important advance. 'Other scientists have already done that, and built prototypes for neural brain-to-machine devices that can work for animals or humans. But each team has taken a different approach to the problem, such as developing algorithms for measuring activity in a specific brain region, or measuring them through EEGs vs. optical imaging. MIT said that it has developed a unified algorithm that can work within the parameters of these different approaches. Lakshminarayan "Ram" Srinivasan, lead author of a paper on the subject, said MIT's new graphical models are applicable no matter what measurement technique is used. "We don't need to reinvent a new paradigm for each modality or brain region," he said in a statement.'"
Murphy, is that you in there?
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
...welcome our standardized future cyborg overlords.
Fixed
Anything is solvable with another layer of abstraction.
-USR1
Wake me when this is applied to something useful.
Right -- because giving paralyzed people the ability to locomote and manipulate objects isn't remotely useful, is it? After all, who will buy supper for the accessibility ramp-makers once their industry dries up?
I'm sending my quadruplegic friend over to your house right now to beat you up.
These stories are free but worth money.
My blog
10 FOR I = 1 TO 50 20 WALK 30 IF ROBOT = BUMPINTOSOMETHING THEN GOTO 50 40 NEXT I 50 PRINT "Ouch!"; 60 TURNAROUND 70 GOTO 10
Actually, it's pretty funny you bring that up, as there's a Ghost In The Shell episode in which this very sort of situation occurs.
A man with cybernetic limbs shoots and kills a woman. During the court trials, his defense lawyer (highly experienced with defending people with cybernetic prosthetics) says that the defendant wasn't used to his newly upgraded/installed cybernetic body parts (and the new control software for them) and thus fired the gun unintentionally.
When I saw this episode, it was a bit of a shock to consider those kinds of situations where the natural self-control we take for granted could potentially no longer be in place, if we were to start to rely on technology to take the place of our physical bodies...
It's not really being applied to that yet though. At the moment it's still just the promise of something on the horizon. I suspect the parent was just tired of too much hype with too little real world application.
Everything will be taken away from you.