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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.'"
...welcome our standardized future cyborg overlords.
Fixed
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...