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U.S. Military Spending Millions To Make Cyborgs A Reality (cnn.com)
mmell writes: The U.S. military is spending millions on an advanced implant that would allow a human brain to communicate directly with computers. If it succeeds, cyborgs will be a reality. The goal of the proposed implant is to "open the channel between the human brain and modern electronics" according to DARPA's program manager, Phillip Alvelda. In January, DARPA announced it plans to spend up to $62 million on the project, which is part of its Neural Engineering System Design program. The implant would be small -- no larger than one cubic centimeter, or roughly the size of two stacked nickels -- according to DARPA. The implantable device aims to convert neurons in the brain into electronic signals and provide unprecedented "data-transfer bandwidth between the human brain and the digital world," according to a DARPA statement announcing the new project. DARPA sees the implant as providing a foundation for new therapies that could help people with deficits in sight or hearing by "feeding digital auditory or visual information into the brain." A spokesman for DARPA told CNN that the program is not intended for military applications.
Ordinarily, such a headline might be considered sensationalist reporting and a batch of sci-fi -- except DARPA is involved. I can remember when internetworking computers was a radical concept until DARPA came up with some serious sci-fi style communications protocols to make it all work. With only $62 million budgeted (so far), we can only hope that it'll be a while before they succeed -- but then again, this is DARPA we're talking about.
Ordinarily, such a headline might be considered sensationalist reporting and a batch of sci-fi -- except DARPA is involved. I can remember when internetworking computers was a radical concept until DARPA came up with some serious sci-fi style communications protocols to make it all work. With only $62 million budgeted (so far), we can only hope that it'll be a while before they succeed -- but then again, this is DARPA we're talking about.
You can read about the specifics here: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=op....
The call is for a human-deployable system after 4 years. It should read from a million neurons and be able to write to 100,000 neurons, 1000 neurons in full duplex read-write, with 60 dB channel isolation, all in a tiny package that doesn't significantly overheat the brain tissue its up against.
Who thinks that's possible?
Expected time to finish is 1 hour and 60 minutes.
> I can remember when internetworking computers was a radical concept until DARPA came up with some serious sci-fi style communications protocols
No, son, you don't. And no, they didn't.
E ... this was a radical concept". Four years later the protocol was improved to add sequence numbers, acks, send windows, and TCP was born. While ARPA (now DARPA) financed some of this work, it wasn't anything DARPA[sic] came up with nor was there any "serious sci-fi style" whatever to it. From the IMPs of 1969 to the NSF core routers (Cisco AGS+) of the 1980s to the networks we have today, The US DoD ARPA had a hand in funding it, but it didn't "come up" with any of it (that's not what they do) and none of it is sci-fi, and you don't remember any of that personally. Here's a shout out to the many people who were around that day.
P.S. To add finer detail, the IMPs used the 1822 protocol developed by Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN) in 1969. You were not around to "remember when