Captain Cyborg Is Back! Kevin Warwick Predicts the Future

richi writes "Kevin Warwick: His name raises extremes of opinion. For more than a decade, this highly controversial cybernetics professor has been making waves. His high-profile experiments — and even higher-profile claim that he's the first living cyborg — earned him column inches and unflattering nicknames. In this Forbes interview, 'Captain Cyborg' talks about exploding motorcycles, wireless power, and fish and chips."

Comments

Steve Mann

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Steve Mann (Wearcam, Eyetap, etc.) has been the first living cyborg since at least the 80s.

Re:Steve Mann

[Sockatume]

If we're going for pedantry - and I assume that's what this is about - someone who actually implants tech inside his body has more of a claim than somebody who just wears it as an accessory.

Re:Steve Mann

[mcgrew]

You are correct. It has to be implanted and be a machine or electronic device. My eye's lens replacement I got back in 2006 counts - unlike the old style lenses, it sits on struts and will focus, powered by the eye's muscle. People with artificial joint implants are cyborgs. A pacemaker or a cochlear implant makes you a cyborg. A prosthetic or Google Glasses or sewing a useless chip under your skin does not.

Most cyborgs are geezers. You will be assimilated... if you're lucky.

Warwick's no cyborg, he's a loon. Mann doesn't seem to be playing with a full deck, either.

Publicity the likely motive

[mikewilsonuk]

If the good captain is back in the public eye, it probably means he had a new book to promote.

Re:Publicity the likely motive

[ArcadeMan]

Or he's ready to ASSIMILATE US ALL!

                                                                 

John Titor says he's overrated

[TWiTfan]

And I trust a man FROM the future to know it better than just any old cyborg.

Kevin Bloody Warwick

[brain159]

The only thing I need to say about Kevin Bloody Warwick is this:

In his lectures in the Intro To Cybernetics module at the University Of Reading, he played long video clips from The Lawnmower Man. With a straight face.

(Source: BSc in comp sci at Reading, 2000 - 2003)

Re:Kevin Bloody Warwick

[seanellis]

As a more ragged and old alumnus of the Reading University Cybs Deprtment (1984-1987), I have to add my own observation.

Prior to Prof. Warwick being engaged, we were a backwater department of about 25 students per year, stuck in half of a drafty old WWII building at the Earley end of the campus, equipped wth a heating system inherited from early Pleistocene times. (The other half was the psychlogy department.)

Warwick was appointed one year after I left. Within a year after that, the department moved to a nice shiny new building with hot water and transistors so plentiful that they didn't have to be desoldered and reused at the end of a project. I think that he can be credited with at least some of this upswing in fortune, even if he is a regular figure of fun in the news.

Re:Kevin Bloody Warwick

[HeckRuler]

Soooo.... He's a political mover and shaker that can get public funds funneled to his department to give his underlings a kooshier life while they... do whatever it is they do. Presumably they're doing something more important and beneficial to society than those poor shlubs in the psychology department who are still in the drafty WWII-era building.

You know what would justify an "upswing in forturne" for that department? Actually doing some science, graduating students that go onto do impressive things in their field, publishing meaningful papers, and bringing glory to the school for all the awesome shit they do. The bit where the professor gets in the news and you get a swanky building are supposed to come after that, not before.

Cyborg? Lol!

[StoneyMahoney]

For anyone interested in being 'the kind of cyborg'* this guy was, it's way too easy.

1 - Put your RFID-based travel pass in your glove
2 - Open ticket barriers by waving your hand at the sensor

(*Other options: Jedi knight, wizard, the media's idea of Kevin Mitnick)