The thing that makes the cochlear implants work though from my understanding is that they are able to function without high numbers of extremely tightly packed electrodes. I believe the high end ones only have 20 or so electrodes in total.
I agree that more difficult tasks require input directly from the nervous system, but there are quite a few difficulties in recording arrays that need to be overcome before we'll start to see your full manipulation of an artificial arm. It just seems to me that declaring that the best use we have for these neural arrays is to control a computer is a bit ridiculous. I'm pretty sure if I was in that situation with a recording array stuck in my brain that I would ask them to hook it up to an arm or hand so rather than getting some crappy mouse movements that I could have some basic functions back.
One of the profs at my school who works on neural prostheses for para/quadriplegics, has pointed out that this technology could very well be overkill. He showed us a video of someone with neural implants controlling a computer compared to someone using one of those mouses mounted on someones head who can use eye blinks as mouse clicks. The neural implants were far slower and couldn't produce smooth motions at all (the man was trying to sketch something with mspaint) whereas with a head mounted mouse the user was able to play a game of solitaire without problems.
Granted, this was a very primitive implant that likely can be improved a lot, but is it worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient right now for barely functional neural implants when we have a simpler, cheaper, more reliable, less dangerous solution?
Though I can never remember the specifics or anything, it's been showing that if you place an electrode in the proper place in a rodent brain that can evoke immense pleasure (probably some dopaminergic nuclei in the limbic system) and hook it up to a switch the mouse can activate stimulation himself - that the mouse will figure out that this magic switch is amazing. And as a result, he will eventually just sit at the switch stimulating himself until he starves to death.
In humans with chronic pain disorders, they have similar deep brain stimulators that you're supposed to activate when you're in pain - but inevitably some people will just stimulate themselves for fun, though I haven't heard of anything drastic as the mouse experiment.
Just some random facts from some of my neuroscience courses
People were already working on this before this prize was announced. I know a friend who is working in a lab that's trying to design tiny little nanomachines or something that can run along a piece of DNA and sequence it. This would just be a little bonus for them I guess.
What's not to say that the number of mustard genes has also been over-estimated. I reckon that the genome of Arabidopsis hasn't been checked and double-checked like the human genome and is equally likely of being more genes than reality.
It's likely already been pointed out, but using Optimoz mouse gestures you can do every single one of those things, plus customize your own gestures to do whatever you want.
The most impressive thing I've seen in the military is my friend in the (Canadian) reserves who got a sweet hat that's coated with some special chemical to reduce his IR signature and special camo pattern to reduce sattelite visibility and a whole bunch more features. Pretty neat.
Slightly OT, but my French teacher told me a story about when the Euro was being introduced in France, everyone was having renovations and spending cash on large items to rid themselves of illicitly obtained money that they wanted to keep away from the government taxman.
I wonder if the author points out the fact that Marconi blatently 'borrowed' technology for his radio, stealing the title of inventor of the radio from Nikola Tesla?
As the blurb from the article says: '[businesses must] supply you with a product or a service even if you refuse consent for the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information unless the information is essential to the transaction'.
I think if your phone number was essential to preventing fraud and the company explained this to the privacy commission and the customers, there would be no problem.
I don't know how much of a factor the weather is, but I'm sure it plays some toll. The sensors and such likely easily affected by the mountains of snow and -30 temperatures in the winter. Even having those little reflectors in the lines to make them more visible at night can't be used due to snow plows scraping them away, so I'm positive this has some affect on how fancy and high tech our roadways can get.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing that makes the cochlear implants work though from my understanding is that they are able to function without high numbers of extremely tightly packed electrodes. I believe the high end ones only have 20 or so electrodes in total. I agree that more difficult tasks require input directly from the nervous system, but there are quite a few difficulties in recording arrays that need to be overcome before we'll start to see your full manipulation of an artificial arm. It just seems to me that declaring that the best use we have for these neural arrays is to control a computer is a bit ridiculous. I'm pretty sure if I was in that situation with a recording array stuck in my brain that I would ask them to hook it up to an arm or hand so rather than getting some crappy mouse movements that I could have some basic functions back.
One of the profs at my school who works on neural prostheses for para/quadriplegics, has pointed out that this technology could very well be overkill. He showed us a video of someone with neural implants controlling a computer compared to someone using one of those mouses mounted on someones head who can use eye blinks as mouse clicks. The neural implants were far slower and couldn't produce smooth motions at all (the man was trying to sketch something with mspaint) whereas with a head mounted mouse the user was able to play a game of solitaire without problems. Granted, this was a very primitive implant that likely can be improved a lot, but is it worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient right now for barely functional neural implants when we have a simpler, cheaper, more reliable, less dangerous solution?
Though I can never remember the specifics or anything, it's been showing that if you place an electrode in the proper place in a rodent brain that can evoke immense pleasure (probably some dopaminergic nuclei in the limbic system) and hook it up to a switch the mouse can activate stimulation himself - that the mouse will figure out that this magic switch is amazing. And as a result, he will eventually just sit at the switch stimulating himself until he starves to death. In humans with chronic pain disorders, they have similar deep brain stimulators that you're supposed to activate when you're in pain - but inevitably some people will just stimulate themselves for fun, though I haven't heard of anything drastic as the mouse experiment. Just some random facts from some of my neuroscience courses
People were already working on this before this prize was announced. I know a friend who is working in a lab that's trying to design tiny little nanomachines or something that can run along a piece of DNA and sequence it. This would just be a little bonus for them I guess.
sounds a lot like vivisimo: search tree
http://www.digmind.com/store/index_500.html seems to solve all your problems
save as .txt, .doc or .pdf or any of the other files. Almost everyone would be able to open one of those.
What's not to say that the number of mustard genes has also been over-estimated. I reckon that the genome of Arabidopsis hasn't been checked and double-checked like the human genome and is equally likely of being more genes than reality.
It's likely already been pointed out, but using Optimoz mouse gestures you can do every single one of those things, plus customize your own gestures to do whatever you want.
The most impressive thing I've seen in the military is my friend in the (Canadian) reserves who got a sweet hat that's coated with some special chemical to reduce his IR signature and special camo pattern to reduce sattelite visibility and a whole bunch more features. Pretty neat.
UT2004 EULA states that cheating is illegal I don't know what Valve puts in their EULA but Epic would certainly have a case in courts.
Slightly OT, but my French teacher told me a story about when the Euro was being introduced in France, everyone was having renovations and spending cash on large items to rid themselves of illicitly obtained money that they wanted to keep away from the government taxman.
I wonder if the author points out the fact that Marconi blatently 'borrowed' technology for his radio, stealing the title of inventor of the radio from Nikola Tesla?
As the blurb from the article says: '[businesses must] supply you with a product or a service even if you refuse consent for the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information unless the information is essential to the transaction'. I think if your phone number was essential to preventing fraud and the company explained this to the privacy commission and the customers, there would be no problem.
I don't know how much of a factor the weather is, but I'm sure it plays some toll. The sensors and such likely easily affected by the mountains of snow and -30 temperatures in the winter. Even having those little reflectors in the lines to make them more visible at night can't be used due to snow plows scraping them away, so I'm positive this has some affect on how fancy and high tech our roadways can get.
Is that a miniature spy plane in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
"but this is HDTV... it has better resolution than real life!" - Fry to Leela's complaints about his laziness.
I use Web2Pop. Web2Pop English Website
It's a really nifty program that lets you read hotmail, yahoo and many other web based emails in your thunderbird inbox. I give it 2 thumbs.