Saint Sputnik posted:

Funny, I thought the Wii would be the easiest thing to play with one hand.

I know non-electronic prosthetics have had some breakthroughs in recent years, is there anything you're keeping an eye on in that area?

RabbitWizard posted:

What? Maybe not in the next 10-20 years...but progress is made, so i can totally imagine improved limbs/organs in the future. Wiring nerves to electronics would have been magic some time ago, but here we are. Are there any medical limits, like you can't wire "every" nerv to something? Or is it technical?

Kommienzuspadt posted:

Well strictly speaking, the problem is that nature has spent BILLIONS of years figuring this out and we've been at it like maybe a couple decades. Also thermodynamically speaking most biological machines like the mitochodrial ATP synthase that generates "energy" for your cells operates at like 50% efficiency. Human engines might get up to 15% efficiency. We just aren't that good at doing thing yet.

Kommienzuspadt posted:

Human engines might get up to 15% efficiency. We just aren't that good at doing thing yet.

Space Monster posted:

I'm kind of scared. I wasn't expecting humanity to develop a brain/machine interface so quickly and thought we'd have more time to think (as a society) of the implications.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

And we already have people complaining about amputees using super legs in competition, which I would think indicates a real possibility of artificial legs becoming just plain better than regular legs.

Kommienzuspadt posted:

the problem is that nature has spent BILLIONS of years

Angela Christine posted:

Maybe someday we can all become cybernetic bigdog-centaurs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZPRsrwumQ

Just wire that badboy up to your central nervous system and away you go. BZZZZZ.

Angela Christine posted:

Maybe someday we can all become cybernetic bigdog-centaurs.

Famethrowa posted:

Spacedad posted:

Presuming we get to the point where cybernetic additions are able to outperform human parts - I don't think that there will ever reach a point where we feel the need to hack off our own limbs or transplant our brains into cyborg bodies

quote:

Another idea I've seen explored in certain cyberpunk scifi - a subculture of cybernetic body programming, where literal 'life hackers' program new complex actions for their bodies or limbs & enhancements to be capable of performing. I could see people particularly skilled at creating and 'driving' such things being a part of some kind of cybernetic olympics too.

Angela Christine posted:

Maybe someday we can all become cybernetic bigdog-centaurs.

Angela Christine posted:

Maybe someday we can all become cybernetic bigdog-centaurs.

Yaos posted:

If they can perfect input and output there's nothing stopping somebody from sending a signal to a virtual body part and have feeling in that virtual body part come back out; as far as the brain is concerned it's a real arm you are controlling and not a software based one. I think that's much more interesting than replacing body parts since a virtual world would have no limitations.

Boogaleeboo posted:

Nope, it's pretty spot on. It's getting better all the time, but for the same general 'calories' a car might get 30 miles and a human 300. This of course varies wildly [not all cars are energy efficient, and not all people are in 'average' shape], but as a general rule your body kicks the living poo poo out of most engines humanity has come up with to date. Even if we got with roughly equal sizes as tiny scooter to human carrying poo poo, it still holds up. You are a pretty good machine, all things being equal.

abigserve posted:

Outside the box time - who's to say you limit this to body parts? If they can configure it so it "feels" like an extension of your own body then you could control huge cranes and manufacturing equipment using the power of your mind!

Wingless posted:

Blade runners have an advantage on a straight flat surface where top speed is the goal. Put them in a race through a forest or around a mountain and you'll see just how superior human legs are.

quote:

I have wired an EEG headset that reads your brain into a video game to give you telekinetic super-powers controlled with your thoughts. The game uses first-person shooter controls, but it's not a first-person shooter. You'll fight entirely through NeuroSky's MindWave headset peripheral that reads the electrical activity of your brain...The game works by doing a bunch of crazy math on your brainwaves to determine how calm and focused you are. These two conditions act as the scalars on your psychic powers. Want to throw a truck into that pompous jerk strafing around in front of you? Just focus on it. The more focused you are, the harder you fling the truck and the more smushy he ends up.

shovelbum posted:

I mean it's in the ballpark for automotive gasoline engines but 15% hasn't been the upper bound for "human machines" in a long time.

Kommienzuspadt posted:

Well strictly speaking, the problem is that nature has spent BILLIONS of years figuring this out and we've been at it like maybe a couple decades. Also thermodynamically speaking most biological machines like the mitochodrial ATP synthase that generates "energy" for your cells operates at like 50% efficiency. Human engines might get up to 15% efficiency. We just aren't that good at doing thing yet.

poo poo can happen but dont ever expect it to do much better than the original could, not in a holistic sense anyway. You might get a stronger hand for example but it won't be as deft or nimble.

mrae posted:

Beyond chopping off limbs for "I want to be a cyborg" reasons, what about people with diseases not yet advanced that will deteriorate a system beyond use? Folks who have glaucoma might opt to get bionic eyes rather than watch their eyesight become blindness.

As someone who has genetic predisposition to glaucoma and macular degeneration, I'd sign up for that poo poo today.

RabbitWizard posted:

And I would totally chop of my hands if i could get hands that can feel stuff and have 8 fingers that i can move in ever direction, not to mention the 20 mouseclicks i could do in a second. Throw in a bitset and a rotating pinky and i'm sold.

RabbitWizard posted:

And I would totally chop of my hands if i could get hands that can feel stuff and have 8 fingers that i can move in ever direction, not to mention the 20 mouseclicks i could do in a second. Throw in a bitset and a rotating pinky and i'm sold.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

You're forgetting the ability to have your hand rotate completely around your wrist, so you can effortlessly swing a stick around like a kung fu master. (But really, that would probably be useful as well.)

roomforthetuna posted:

Hold a propellor, point upwards, bam, helicopter hands.

RabbitWizard posted:

Just because:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBjoWMA5d84
This is a harddrive 30 years ago. 250.000$, 38,5kg, 10mb.
Today i can get for 60$ 64GB and it's as big as a fingernail. Humans are great at making things efficient.

And I would totally chop of my hands if i could get hands that can feel stuff and have 8 fingers that i can move in ever direction, not to mention the 20 mouseclicks i could do in a second. Throw in a bitset and a rotating pinky and i'm sold.

Zorak posted:

Here's a rather unique prosthetics accomplishment that took some years before it was working properly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0zy9QITHMA&hd=1

A Buttery Pastry posted:

You're forgetting the ability to have your hand rotate completely around your wrist

quote:

WASHINGTON — Patients who have lost their sight due to a rare disorder may be able to regain some vision using a new implantable device that takes the place of damaged cells inside the eye.

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System as the first treatment for an inherited disorder that causes the breakdown of cells in the retina, a membrane inside the eye.
The technology will initially only be available to a small number of patients, but could eventually be used to treat vision disorders that affect millions of people. The device was previously approved in Europe in late 2011.

The system includes a small video camera and transmitter mounted on a pair of glasses. Images from the camera are processed into electronic data that is wirelessly transmitted to electrodes implanted into the patient’s retina.

FDA says that while the device will not fully restore patients’ vision, “it may allow them to detect light and dark in the environment,” which could help them perform daily tasks.

The FDA approved the device from Second Sight Medical Products for patients 25 years and older who have advanced retinitis pigmentosa. Starting in their twenties, people with the disease slowly lose vision as the light-sensitive cells that line the retina deteriorate. Over a period of decades the condition eventually leads to blindness.

“It’s like looking down a tunnel that gradually narrows until it disappears entirely,” said Dr. Robert Greenberg, CEO and founder of Second Sight. “What we’re doing is reopening the window that had closed on them.”

Greenberg first proposed the technology for the Argus device as a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University’s medical school about 20 years ago. He founded Second Sight to develop the technology in 1998.

About 100,000 people in the U.S. have retinitis pigmentosa, though the FDA estimates fewer than 4,000 will initially receive the device under its currently approved indication. Patients must have little to no light perception in both eyes but a prior history of being able to make out basic shapes and forms. They must also have signs of at least some remaining retinal function.

Results from a study of 30 patients with the condition showed that most were able to perform daily activities better with the implant than without it. Activities included navigating sidewalks and curbs, matching different color socks and recognizing large words or sentences.

Second Sight hopes to eventually win approval to treat a wide variety of vision disorders, including macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in developed countries.

Research and development of the Argus II was supported by $100 million in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.

Second Sight Medical Products, Inc. is a privately held company based in Sylmar, Calif.

RabbitWizard posted:

Didn't mention that, because Simpsons Deus Ex did it and that would maybe somehow undermine my point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcSQ943wLOQ#t=169s

RabbitWizard posted:

Just because:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBjoWMA5d84
This is a harddrive 30 years ago. 250.000$, 38,5kg, 10mb.
Today i can get for 60$ 64GB and it's as big as a fingernail. Humans are great at making things efficient.

Dusseldorf posted:

Not to mention that the Cybogs can act in clear violation of the rules of robotics.

Angela Christine posted:

The problem isn't that we can't improve the technology, the problem is that we have competing and somewhat incompatible goals for the technology.