OT: Hardware-to-Organism Interfaces (h2oi)

narf poit chez BOOM · #1 February 6th, 2004, 12:53 AM

Quote:

Thanks for the feedback so far. For the record, "mind-reading" interfaces are total fantasy (at least at this point). I'm looking for ideas that might reasonably be implemented in 10 years or so.

Another example: Researchers have already steered cockroaches and rats using brain implants. So, how about remote-controlled animals (dogs, pigeons, rats) equipped with cameras?

uh...methinks my point you have proven.

Puke · #2 February 6th, 2004, 02:45 AM

I remember a few years back, Russian inteligence declasified documents on a cyber cat they had built, for survailance. they could steer through implants in the poor thing, record video and audio (god knows where they put the sensors) and it had an antenna burried under its skin. poor thing cost MILLIONS.

honest to god, i read this in the news - and you can probably dredge it up on the web. according to the report the day they were going to field test it, they let it out of their van and watched in horror as it was run over by a car.

in unrelated news, there is also some fierce competition between companies developing ocular implants to restore sight to the blind. some of them tap directly into the occular nerve, and the one that has gotten the most press coverage is able to deliver a 100 pixel (10x10 field of dots) display, enough to enable the subject to destinguish shapes, or read very large block lettering.

Artificial Muscle is a big thing, not only for medicine but for robotics and small motors. nanotubes are all the rage right now, but I saw one interesting report a few months back, about using very fine and very poreous strands of platinum that can contract by huge ammounts, because of all the holes and pores.

Puke · #3 February 6th, 2004, 09:06 AM

wow, i was WAY off. first, it was ours and not theres. second, we couldnt steer it - which was part of the problem. third, no video, just audio.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/an...00/1638924.stm

They say your memory is the second thing to go. Heck if I can remember what the first thing was, but I guess its not as necessary as I must have thought, back when I had it.

Kamog · #4 February 6th, 2004, 09:14 AM

What a terrible thing to do to a cat...

geoschmo · #5 February 7th, 2004, 02:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by dmm:
Thanks for the feedback so far. For the record, "mind-reading" interfaces are total fantasy (at least at this point). I'm looking for ideas that might reasonably be implemented in 10 years or so.

Ummm, no, not total fantasy. Well, maybe "mind reading" as in, hook someone up and see what they are thinking, like in that Natalie Wood movie. But they already have had some success with interfacing the mind with simple machines and getting them to respond to direct mental impulses. Don't know if we are talking practical applications in less then ten years, but it seems entirely possible given the progress they have already made. Did you read the article I linked to? Here it is in case you missed it in my first post. http://www.popsci.com/popsci/medicin...576464,00.html

[ February 06, 2004, 12:25: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Nocturnal · #6 February 7th, 2004, 02:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Puke:
in unrelated news, there is also some fierce competition between companies developing ocular implants to restore sight to the blind. some of them tap directly into the occular nerve, and the one that has gotten the most press coverage is able to deliver a 100 pixel (10x10 field of dots) display, enough to enable the subject to destinguish shapes, or read very large block lettering.

Drat, foiled again!

I thought about making artificial eyes for the blind. Those would need to be wired to intact ocular nerves, and in theory at least should be possible. I had considered making a higher density of photoreceptors to give the recipient eagle-vision (since the smallest CCD cells can now be made the size of a human cone cell,) but realized that human brains probably weren't even "wired" for any more cones and rods than were already in place. So an additional circuit to handle the additional information from the photoreceptors might be needed before interfacing with the brain. I say might because the hypothesized "vision area" of the human brain is huge. It might be capable of more than I think. What such a pre-brain vision circuit could do for example would be to filter and focus a part of the picture and in effect allow the recipient to zoom in and out on a part of the image that his or her brain is able to handle at once (I would think this could be wired to the nerves that now control the lenses in functioning human eyes, with actual focusing done automatically in the prosthetic eye.) The circuit could also quite easily be made to record the full video information in such a way that it could be read out into a computer or video system. Spy of the future?

Nocturnal · #7 February 7th, 2004, 02:54 AM

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But Henriquez and other neuroengineers do see one particularly enormous roadblock in the way of DARPA's goal. According to Rudolph, it would be unethical to implant electrodes in the heads of healthy soldiers.

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA HA! Since when has ethics ever been a roadblock to military technology? It would be no problem to find a hundred fighter pilots and commandos who'd volunteer to have their brains drilled into.