Let's be cyborgs

"Let's go for the future, let's be cyborgs" was the closing statement of professor Kevin Warwick after he talked about his recent explorations in wiring up his nervous system to electronic systems. He had a device with an array of electrodes implanted into the median nerve of his left arm, which allowed his nervous signals to be read electronically. Then, he was able to operate several things remotely by moving his hand. He went on to link his state of arousal to the color of a necklace his wife was wearing, so that she would always know if he was in a calm or excited state. His next step was to also put the electrodes in his wife's arm, and set up a primitive communication system. Whenever one person squeezes their hand, the other person would feel this as pulses inside the brain. This then should be a first step towards direct brain-to-brain communication in order to complement the "pathetic, trivial, serial coded pressure wave form" that speech is, according to Kevin Warwick. Watch the video here:

Air Guitar Hero

After seeing this movie you have to conclude that doing academic research is not so bad. Here's some interesting research called "Enabling Always-Available Input with Muscle-Computer Interfaces" that was presented on the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST'09) in Victoria, BC. But *poke poke* really guys, you just wanted to be able to play Guitar Hero in mid-air, didn't you.

But of course, it's definitely mind- and bodybogglingly interesting to make human computer interfaces more intimately connected to the human body, therethrough getting closer and closer to the actual motor neurons instead of only connecting technological artefacts to the end effectors of the infinitely complex and self-optimizing systems that our bodies are.