DailyDirt: Melding Humans And Machines
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
“Terminator”-like cyborgs may still be just a thing of science fiction, but modern technological advances in bionics are enabling people to regain or enhance their ability to do everyday things that most people take for granted. Here are just a few examples of some bionically enhanced people (and animals).
- Customized 3D-printed appendages are helping a ~4-year-old girl regain use of her arms. The “magic arms” (as she calls them) attach to a modular body-powered upper-limb orthotic device called the Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (WREX). [url]
- The Mercedes Formula One team gave a new bionic arm to a teenage fan, who was born without a left hand, after he offered to sell Mercedes advertising space on his prosthetic arm. The customized i-LIMB Pulse, created with the help of Touch Bionics, allows him to do things like grip a pen to draw pictures and write, tie his shoe laces, and catch a ball. [url]
- Researchers are studying the amazing potential of brain-computer interfaces (BCI) and neuroprosthetics. BCIs work because of the neuroplasticity of the brain, which allows neurons to form new connections in response to new stimuli. People, monkeys, and rats have all demonstrated the ability to use BCIs to perform various tasks. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: bci, biotech, human machine interface, neuroprosthetics, prosthetics, wilmington robotic exoskeleton
Companies: mercedes
Comments on “DailyDirt: Melding Humans And Machines”
Sweet!
Sign me up for the cyborg body that runs on Linux!
Re: Sweet!
I’d go for the one that runs on GNU/Linux-libre. Except that, of course, it would take five years to gain support for eye vision.
Joyce, you forgot something here:
“The Mercedes Formula One team gave a new bionic arm to a teenage fan, who was born without a left hand, after he offered to sell Mercedes advertising space on his prosthetic arm. The customized i-LIMB Pulse, created with the help of Touch Bionics, allows him to do things like grip a pen to draw pictures and write, tie his shoe laces, and catch a ball.”
A rudimentary sense of touch 🙂
Give the believers a day or two, and they’ll decry this effort as an attempt to play god.
Re: Re:
Why would any believer who has read his bible decry this as an attempt to play God? I only see people using their god given talents, and hard earned skills to help their fellow man.
Luke (of the Gospel according to Luke) was a doctor.
I Corinthians 3:13 : “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Re: Re: Re:
Interesting that you should mention the works of the Apostle Luke in a medical based article 🙂
“Customized 3D-printed appendages are helping a ~4-year-old girl regain use of her arms.”
[troll]
Quick! Someone patent the design so it can be locked behind DRM before freeloading 4 year olds start getting free limbs! If they want it, they can pay like everyone else!
[/troll]
WE ARE THE BORG
You will be assimilated!
Resistance is futile.
If only Trojan would agree to provide a person with a certain prosthetic limb for the advertising….