Robo sapiens

Yesterday I bumped into an episode 'Robo sapiens' on The Discovery channel. Ever thought The Matrix is impossible? What if you could have two extra robotic arms or two extra legs or wheels that operated with your mind as if they were a part of your body? What if you could calculate as fast as a PC? Check this out- http://science.discovery.com/tuneins/robosapien.html. It could be true in the future.

Exaggerations aside, the show showed a person paralyzed under the neck. He was implanted with electrodes under his scalp which sent signals to a computer which decoded the signals. He could control the cursor on the PC, play a game of ping pong just using his bran. He felt the cursor wa part of his body. It also showed a monkey which controlled a robotic arm with its brain, using implants under its scalp. Its amazing how teh brain trains itself to control the these external obejects. All the technogy has to do is to decode the signals from the brain and convert them to a meaningful and consistent output (which is not a simple problem ofcourse) and leave the rest to the brain to train itself.

The possibilities for the future are endless and scary. There was only one thing funny about the show, the people who were implanted with these artificial things are called Cyborgs (??). Whoever came up with that name. Sounds like an alien. 'And thus he became a cyborg'.