Friday
Reading the cyberpunks in the 1980s or watching Cronenburg's eXistenZ, provided visions of a noir future where brain computer interfaces were commonplace and you could jack into cyberspace, virtual reality, or whatever hyped up term was collecting reputation dust. In the current world of information chop suey, it is hard to detect truly important developments. Here is one.
Harvard scientists have moved closer to an effective neural interface with engineered silicon nanowires "that detect, simulate and and inhibit nerve signals along the axons and dendrites of live mammalian neurons." They are able to attach a non-invasive wire to a single nerve cell as a hybrid synapse and allow signals to travel between wire and cell. The next step in the research programme is the development of larger scale contacts between wires and nerve cells. As Charles Lieber, Professor of Chemistry at Harvard speculates:
This work could have a revolutionary impact on science and technology," Lieber says. "It provides a powerful new approach for neuroscience to study and manipulate signal propagation in neuronal networks at a level unmatched by other techniques; it provides a new paradigm for building sophisticated interfaces between the brain and external neural prosthetics; it represents a new, powerful, and flexible approach for real-time cellular assays useful for drug discovery and other applications; and it opens the possibility for hybrid circuits that couple the strengths of digital nanoelectronic and biological computing components."
(Hat tip: Betterhumans)
Meh. As a tuch-typist, when I want a word to appear on screen, I simply think it, and soon afterward, it appears. I don't have to think about moving my finger to every individual key, or any of those things. It's a pretty good interface. You could say that my keyboard and mouse are my "brain computer interface." :)
Then again, having to enter that bloddy anti-spambot Turing code, I realized that when I have to input numbers (without using the numpad), I do have to think about moving my fingers to each key. Very inconcenient.
Posted by cryptononcommie at August 26, 2006 01:26 AM
The brain is where the SOUL is kept. These new machines are a great idea until they lobotomize you. :(
Still, being able to type on the internet without hurting my fingers after a few years sounds very nice. Then I could spend even more time behind the computer, pwning so many noobs in Counter Strike.
Posted by Jso at August 26, 2006 04:02 AM
"Present SOUL! Order, SOUL!" - Colonel Fox, "Oophel In The Sky". H. Beam Piper (1960)
When I can upload my soul, I'll start believing in its existence....
Posted by Mike Lorrey at August 26, 2006 07:51 AM
This also opens up new territory for writers of computer virus/worm/spam programs.
Imagine not just getting anoying email, but being forced to see it in your vision.
Never mind woody-wonder drug popup adverts, insteatd you will suddenly have an irresistable compulsion to go down to the nearest pharmacy and actually purchase them, whether you need it or not, or have the targeted organ, or not.
Time to buy stock in Symantic and McAffee...
Posted by tomWright at August 27, 2006 05:34 PM
This is going to be an absolute boon to prosthetics. There are already artificial limbs with very basic control from nerves, limited to opening or closing a hand if I remember right, but with this technology much finer control might soon be possible. OK soon may still be 10 to 20 years, but the advances are at least coming. The first company to get this through clinical trails will make a fortune.
Posted by chris at August 27, 2006 08:28 PM
Tuch-typist? Is this postmodernism in practice?
Not that I know a great deal about how it works, but modelling based on neural networks has been going on for a while now. Rats' neurones, usually.
That said, there could be a less intrusive solution to the business of a Cartesian interface, touched on by this BBC story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5167938.stm
Posted by Jason at August 29, 2006 10:21 AM
