Why not get a mechanical one that's better? I mean I assume it would still be more resistant to damage, but if it was just a case of mechanical being exactly the same, then I'd go biological.
But there are so many things that could make the mechanical one better in simple ways, so if they could do that, mechanical.
Skin. If they could replicate all the touch sensations, I might be willing to go along with the mechanical. But imagine if 70% of your body no longer had touch sensors, except in certain locations...
Synthetic skin might be better than biological skin if you can turn it off when the input crosses a certain threshold. A certain amount sensation is desirable, and you could even make the argument for a certain amount of pain, but life would be so much better if I could turn off or mute the should-out-loud level of pain.
Then again, I'd rather avoid replacing my entire body with synthetic skin if at all possible, so I guess this feature only has limited uses.
So the discussion of the moment seems to be organic/bio-engineered vs mechanical, but it's only in the context of 'useful' applications - replacing a lost limb or failing organ.
What about voluntary modification? If we get to a point where it's possible to replace or augment entire organs and muscle systems, is it reasonable to allow people to increase their natural capabilities?
What about voluntary modification? If we get to a point where it's possible to replace or augment entire organs and muscle systems, is it reasonable to allow people to increase their natural capabilities?
If that becomes legal soldiers, criminals, terrorists, spies and possibly police would be their best customers.
First in line would be athletes and bodybuilders. American Pro Football players are already damn near synthetic.
Depends whether the breakthrough happens in a project open to the public or military. In either case it won't take long for the government to weaponize the technology then we'd have super-soldiers for real.
First in line would be athletes and bodybuilders. American Pro Football players are already damn near synthetic.
Depends whether the breakthrough happens in a project open to the public or military. In either case it won't take long for the government to weaponize the technology then we'd have super-soldiers for real.
Moral quagmire, to say the least.
If you augment soldiers, who has end ownership of the hardware? Does it default to the military as they (presumably) footed the bill? Or does it belong to the person who actually uses it?
If you augment soldiers, who has end ownership of the hardware? Does it default to the military as they (presumably) footed the bill? Or does it belong to the person who actually uses it?
GIAS had a solution to this. In exchange for working for the government cyborgs were temporarily given ownership. The government paid for upgrades and maintenance, too. But if they died the government would take back all the technology.
Like you said, it would be a moral and legal minefield.
Though it might be harder for genuine cyborgs than bio-augmented humans, ala Captain America, Deathstroke, Max Guevara. They would physically be their technology so I'd say they'd have a better case for owning their enhancements.
As long as the device isn't completely internal, swapping out batteries seems like the best plan.
It's only 100% internal devices you can't do this with, like pacemakers and such. For a robot arm you should just have a couple of batteries sitting in a specialized charger at home that you can trade every <x> days, or take them all with you if you're going camping or something.
Two words
induction field.
There is no reason i can't sleep in an induction field and wake up with all my cyborg shit recharged.
As long as the device isn't completely internal, swapping out batteries seems like the best plan.
It's only 100% internal devices you can't do this with, like pacemakers and such. For a robot arm you should just have a couple of batteries sitting in a specialized charger at home that you can trade every <x> days, or take them all with you if you're going camping or something.
Two words
induction field.
There is no reason i can't sleep in an induction field and wake up with all my cyborg shit recharged.
I'm not really up to date on the health effects of that. I mean, I know that cell phones are safe, but I feel like this would require something an order of magnitude stronger.
I'd be kinda worried about spending 8 hours a day in an induction field strong enough to charge batteries. Is there any research on the long term health effects of powerful induction fields? I genuinely never thought of the idea so I've got no clue if it's safe or not.
As long as the device isn't completely internal, swapping out batteries seems like the best plan.
It's only 100% internal devices you can't do this with, like pacemakers and such. For a robot arm you should just have a couple of batteries sitting in a specialized charger at home that you can trade every <x> days, or take them all with you if you're going camping or something.
Two words
induction field.
There is no reason i can't sleep in an induction field and wake up with all my cyborg shit recharged.
I'm not really up to date on the health effects of that. I mean, I know that cell phones are safe, but I feel like this would require something an order of magnitude stronger.
I'd be kinda worried about spending 8 hours a day in an induction field strong enough to charge batteries. Is there any research on the long term health effects of powerful induction fields? I genuinely never thought of the idea so I've got no clue if it's safe or not.
Guys, watch the video I posted a page ago.
The dude in it says
- It's non-radiative. No radiation or electric fields, just magnetic fields, which are generally safe.
- The technology only transfers energy to devices resonating to a specific frequency, and nothing in nature does that.
- The government has set field exposure limits and the technology showcased doesn't exceed those limits.
It turns out that the magnetic field doesn't need to be particularly strong due to resonance frequency physics voodoo.
Why not get a mechanical one that's better? I mean I assume it would still be more resistant to damage, but if it was just a case of mechanical being exactly the same, then I'd go biological.
But there are so many things that could make the mechanical one better in simple ways, so if they could do that, mechanical.
Skin. If they could replicate all the touch sensations, I might be willing to go along with the mechanical. But imagine if 70% of your body no longer had touch sensors, except in certain locations...
Synthetic skin might be better than biological skin if you can turn it off when the input crosses a certain threshold. A certain amount sensation is desirable, and you could even make the argument for a certain amount of pain, but life would be so much better if I could turn off or mute the should-out-loud level of pain.
Then again, I'd rather avoid replacing my entire body with synthetic skin if at all possible, so I guess this feature only has limited uses.
Oh, I agree. But in much of the science fiction where the whole limb is replaced, the skin is cosmetic only (if there even is skin). It would be like using a perpetually numb arm.
Of course, if they can replicate skin perfectly, the porn industry will probably be a bit different than it is now.
Why not get a mechanical one that's better? I mean I assume it would still be more resistant to damage, but if it was just a case of mechanical being exactly the same, then I'd go biological.
But there are so many things that could make the mechanical one better in simple ways, so if they could do that, mechanical.
Skin. If they could replicate all the touch sensations, I might be willing to go along with the mechanical. But imagine if 70% of your body no longer had touch sensors, except in certain locations...
Synthetic skin might be better than biological skin if you can turn it off when the input crosses a certain threshold. A certain amount sensation is desirable, and you could even make the argument for a certain amount of pain, but life would be so much better if I could turn off or mute the should-out-loud level of pain.
Then again, I'd rather avoid replacing my entire body with synthetic skin if at all possible, so I guess this feature only has limited uses.
Oh, I agree. But in much of the science fiction where the whole limb is replaced, the skin is cosmetic only (if there even is skin). It would be like using a perpetually numb arm.
Of course, if they can replicate skin perfectly, the porn industry will probably be a bit different than it is now.
I doubt you need a perfect replication. The human brain is highly malleable - as was posted on the other page, connecting a camera to someone's tongue allowed them to "see" with the data they were receiving, even rerouting and using the visual cortex to do so.
I suspect even if you only had an absurdly low number of sensors - say, 20, you'd find people being able to accurately determine where someone was touching their arm.
Why not get a mechanical one that's better? I mean I assume it would still be more resistant to damage, but if it was just a case of mechanical being exactly the same, then I'd go biological.
But there are so many things that could make the mechanical one better in simple ways, so if they could do that, mechanical.
Skin. If they could replicate all the touch sensations, I might be willing to go along with the mechanical. But imagine if 70% of your body no longer had touch sensors, except in certain locations...
Synthetic skin might be better than biological skin if you can turn it off when the input crosses a certain threshold. A certain amount sensation is desirable, and you could even make the argument for a certain amount of pain, but life would be so much better if I could turn off or mute the should-out-loud level of pain.
Then again, I'd rather avoid replacing my entire body with synthetic skin if at all possible, so I guess this feature only has limited uses.
Oh, I agree. But in much of the science fiction where the whole limb is replaced, the skin is cosmetic only (if there even is skin). It would be like using a perpetually numb arm.
Of course, if they can replicate skin perfectly, the porn industry will probably be a bit different than it is now.
I doubt you need a perfect replication. The human brain is highly malleable - as was posted on the other page, connecting a camera to someone's tongue allowed them to "see" with the data they were receiving, even rerouting and using the visual cortex to do so.
I suspect even if you only had an absurdly low number of sensors - say, 20, you'd find people being able to accurately determine where someone was touching their arm.
I have no doubts that we'd be able to create skin that is functional, but there is more to the sense of feeling that just the ability to determine location of touch.
That is probably the greatest obstacle to voluntary artificial skin grafts, or any artificial limb/implant tbh.
You won't be able to get a robot arm that will make you capable of lifting a ton, as the rest of your organic body wouldn't be able to provide support, so robot arms would probably end up equal to organic arms in terms of conventional use.
Excluding the die-hard cyborgists, I don't see voluntarily cyborgification happening until technology progresses to a point where it artifical skin has greater sense of touch than organic skin, or where an artifical limb can come with infrared sensors or similar extra-sensory capabilities, or the ability to connect to a computing device and control it so much better than through a keyboard/mouse.
As long as the device isn't completely internal, swapping out batteries seems like the best plan.
It's only 100% internal devices you can't do this with, like pacemakers and such. For a robot arm you should just have a couple of batteries sitting in a specialized charger at home that you can trade every <x> days, or take them all with you if you're going camping or something.
Two words
induction field.
There is no reason i can't sleep in an induction field and wake up with all my cyborg shit recharged.
I'm not really up to date on the health effects of that. I mean, I know that cell phones are safe, but I feel like this would require something an order of magnitude stronger.
I'd be kinda worried about spending 8 hours a day in an induction field strong enough to charge batteries. Is there any research on the long term health effects of powerful induction fields? I genuinely never thought of the idea so I've got no clue if it's safe or not.
Guys, watch the video I posted a page ago.
The dude in it says
- It's non-radiative. No radiation or electric fields, just magnetic fields, which are generally safe.
- The technology only transfers energy to devices resonating to a specific frequency, and nothing in nature does that.
- The government has set field exposure limits and the technology showcased doesn't exceed those limits.
It turns out that the magnetic field doesn't need to be particularly strong due to resonance frequency physics voodoo.
I'd still prefer a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Makes you more independant of recharge stations. Voyager 1 and Curiosity are using those. Voyager 1 was launched 1977 and still keeps going. Probably could refine it into an no-recharge solution for the entire lifetime of a human being.
As long as the device isn't completely internal, swapping out batteries seems like the best plan.
It's only 100% internal devices you can't do this with, like pacemakers and such. For a robot arm you should just have a couple of batteries sitting in a specialized charger at home that you can trade every <x> days, or take them all with you if you're going camping or something.
Two words
induction field.
There is no reason i can't sleep in an induction field and wake up with all my cyborg shit recharged.
I'm not really up to date on the health effects of that. I mean, I know that cell phones are safe, but I feel like this would require something an order of magnitude stronger.
I'd be kinda worried about spending 8 hours a day in an induction field strong enough to charge batteries. Is there any research on the long term health effects of powerful induction fields? I genuinely never thought of the idea so I've got no clue if it's safe or not.
Guys, watch the video I posted a page ago.
The dude in it says
- It's non-radiative. No radiation or electric fields, just magnetic fields, which are generally safe.
- The technology only transfers energy to devices resonating to a specific frequency, and nothing in nature does that.
- The government has set field exposure limits and the technology showcased doesn't exceed those limits.
It turns out that the magnetic field doesn't need to be particularly strong due to resonance frequency physics voodoo.
I'd still prefer a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Makes you more independant of recharge stations. Voyager 1 and Curiosity are using those. Voyager 1 was launched 1977 and still keeps going. Probably could refine it into an no-recharge solution for the entire lifetime of a human being.
The kinds of RTGs used on unmanned probes would not be suitable for use near a human. Our deep-space probes keep the RTGs isolated from the main bus and instruments at the end of a boom due to the radiation.
"...a tiny microchip that is swallowed in pill form and whose purpose is to help remind patients to take their medications on time and to offer bio-feedback such as body temperature, heart rate and even sleeping patterns."
Medical science is feeling more and more like a science thanks to stuff like this.
This isn't nearly as complex as everything else discussed in this thread so far, but I saw this today and immediately thought of Total Recall:
*vid*
See I think stuff like this is ultimately a dead end. It's too many proprietary systems which have to work perfectly together to be of any use at all.
I'm also curious as to what you mean by this. Services like Facebook and Twitter already have public APIs. What else is necessary?
I think augmented reality will pretty quickly leapfrog it - everyone keeps their own personal computer space, like a desktop or laptop is now, and the friction point is in allowing people to "share" virtual spaces. Much more solvable though, since whichever protocol works will rapidly become dominant (like the world wide web did).
Isn't the window a form of augmented reality? And I hope whatever protocol evolves is better than HTTP. HTTP hasn't aged well.
This isn't nearly as complex as everything else discussed in this thread so far, but I saw this today and immediately thought of Total Recall:
*vid*
See I think stuff like this is ultimately a dead end. It's too many proprietary systems which have to work perfectly together to be of any use at all.
I'm also curious as to what you mean by this. Services like Facebook and Twitter already have public APIs. What else is necessary?
I think augmented reality will pretty quickly leapfrog it - everyone keeps their own personal computer space, like a desktop or laptop is now, and the friction point is in allowing people to "share" virtual spaces. Much more solvable though, since whichever protocol works will rapidly become dominant (like the world wide web did).
Isn't the window a form of augmented reality? And I hope whatever protocol evolves is better than HTTP. HTTP hasn't aged well.
The problem is it's shared reality. It's only really usable if the only person who uses it is you and you alone, and even then, their are security concerns which quickly trump ease-of-use in any practical sense. You can't depend on your calendar if any idiot walking by might mess it up - even if by accident and not malicious intent.
The most successful technology so far has been the deeply personal - personal computers, followed by laptops, followed by smartphones. Environments which follow you everywhere.
We're only just now getting the idea of a mobile environment worked out, and it's happening slowly and painfully - and again, has obvious security concerns and limitations.
I kind of feel like my ultimate selfish goal, is to live long enough for complete virtual reality. If we develop that, as well as the means to commercialize it for mass consumption and the ability to develop whole artificial worlds at a reasonable price, then I'll be able to experience a form of much of the technology that would come far later. Like, a game of fully immersive interstellar travel is pretty much everything I could ever want.
As long as the device isn't completely internal, swapping out batteries seems like the best plan.
It's only 100% internal devices you can't do this with, like pacemakers and such. For a robot arm you should just have a couple of batteries sitting in a specialized charger at home that you can trade every <x> days, or take them all with you if you're going camping or something.
Two words
induction field.
There is no reason i can't sleep in an induction field and wake up with all my cyborg shit recharged.
I'm not really up to date on the health effects of that. I mean, I know that cell phones are safe, but I feel like this would require something an order of magnitude stronger.
I'd be kinda worried about spending 8 hours a day in an induction field strong enough to charge batteries. Is there any research on the long term health effects of powerful induction fields? I genuinely never thought of the idea so I've got no clue if it's safe or not.
Guys, watch the video I posted a page ago.
The dude in it says
- It's non-radiative. No radiation or electric fields, just magnetic fields, which are generally safe.
- The technology only transfers energy to devices resonating to a specific frequency, and nothing in nature does that.
- The government has set field exposure limits and the technology showcased doesn't exceed those limits.
It turns out that the magnetic field doesn't need to be particularly strong due to resonance frequency physics voodoo.
I'd still prefer a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Makes you more independant of recharge stations. Voyager 1 and Curiosity are using those. Voyager 1 was launched 1977 and still keeps going. Probably could refine it into an no-recharge solution for the entire lifetime of a human being.
The kinds of RTGs used on unmanned probes would not be suitable for use near a human. Our deep-space probes keep the RTGs isolated from the main bus and instruments at the end of a boom due to the radiation.
Powering implants is a pretty interesting problem. I think it'll come down to how efficient the implants are relative to the body part they replace. If your cyborg arm doesn't consume much more energy than your real arm, I don't see why you wouldn't want the cyborg version to burn glucose, fatty acids, or ketone bodies (the choice of which would be under control of serum insulin and glucagon hormone concentrations). The big engineering hurdle here is the development of a biochemical pathway that converts biochemical energy into an electric current to cause the contraction of the artificial muscle.
Buf if you need an external power source, you could do a hybrid type system, with electrical energy stored in a battery (that can be charged however which way) and a small backup generator that burns glucose to recharge the battery for when you're away from the outlet. Maybe you can throw in some sort of energy recapture system in there, too. For example, if you lift a heavy weight then put it down, energy can be recaptured in the latter phase. Efficiency!
I'd like to note that it is becoming possible, in research environments, to literally connect prostheses to the human nervous system. This makes them feel like the actual limb they replace, and they can be controlled in the same way. There are several engineering problems remaining, but it definitely shows that cyborg limbs would be capable of physical sensation without the cop-out of merely rerouting analogues of the sensations to other channels of perception.
And, note the dates on those bits of news. This was already two years ago.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
the thing about that big dog video is that when our robot overlords look back from the future they will be like
THEY MAKE ROBOT THAT CAN WALK
FIRST THING THEY DO IS TRY TO PUSH HIM OVER
BIG BULLY PEOPLE
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Alfred J. Kwakis it because you were insultedwhen I insulted your hair?Registered Userregular
Bill Gates finances laser 'fence' that targets mosquitoes (to fight malaria)
wiki:
The Photonic Fence is thought to be best deployed surrounding buildings, such as hospitals and schools, or even whole villages, in an effort to reduce the spread of malaria. According to Nathan Myhrvold, co-founder of Intellectual Ventures, the Photonic Fence can kill up to 50 to 100 mosquitoes a second, at a maximum range of 100 ft. [25] Myhrvold claims that the laser would be able to shoot down billions of mosquitoes a night.
Bill Gates finances laser 'fence' that targets mosquitoes (to fight malaria)
wiki:
The Photonic Fence is thought to be best deployed surrounding buildings, such as hospitals and schools, or even whole villages, in an effort to reduce the spread of malaria. According to Nathan Myhrvold, co-founder of Intellectual Ventures, the Photonic Fence can kill up to 50 to 100 mosquitoes a second, at a maximum range of 100 ft. [25] Myhrvold claims that the laser would be able to shoot down billions of mosquitoes a night.
That wouldn't take much to weaponize for the military or corporate buildings IMO.
Bill Gates finances laser 'fence' that targets mosquitoes (to fight malaria)
wiki:
The Photonic Fence is thought to be best deployed surrounding buildings, such as hospitals and schools, or even whole villages, in an effort to reduce the spread of malaria. According to Nathan Myhrvold, co-founder of Intellectual Ventures, the Photonic Fence can kill up to 50 to 100 mosquitoes a second, at a maximum range of 100 ft. [25] Myhrvold claims that the laser would be able to shoot down billions of mosquitoes a night.
That wouldn't take much to weaponize for the military or corporate buildings IMO.
That reminds me of a self-defense technology from the J.Sawyers Neanderthal Parallax.
It's basically a hat with a laser mounted on top that will instantly shoot down any bullet headed your way.
I'd still prefer a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Makes you more independant of recharge stations. Voyager 1 and Curiosity are using those. Voyager 1 was launched 1977 and still keeps going. Probably could refine it into an no-recharge solution for the entire lifetime of a human being.
The kinds of RTGs used on unmanned probes would not be suitable for use near a human. Our deep-space probes keep the RTGs isolated from the main bus and instruments at the end of a boom due to the radiation.
You know, there were actually pacemakers made and used that are powered by an RTG, some of them still working and in use.
Posts
Synthetic skin might be better than biological skin if you can turn it off when the input crosses a certain threshold. A certain amount sensation is desirable, and you could even make the argument for a certain amount of pain, but life would be so much better if I could turn off or mute the should-out-loud level of pain.
Then again, I'd rather avoid replacing my entire body with synthetic skin if at all possible, so I guess this feature only has limited uses.
What about voluntary modification? If we get to a point where it's possible to replace or augment entire organs and muscle systems, is it reasonable to allow people to increase their natural capabilities?
If that becomes legal soldiers, criminals, terrorists, spies and possibly police would be their best customers.
Depends whether the breakthrough happens in a project open to the public or military. In either case it won't take long for the government to weaponize the technology then we'd have super-soldiers for real.
Moral quagmire, to say the least.
If you augment soldiers, who has end ownership of the hardware? Does it default to the military as they (presumably) footed the bill? Or does it belong to the person who actually uses it?
GIAS had a solution to this. In exchange for working for the government cyborgs were temporarily given ownership. The government paid for upgrades and maintenance, too. But if they died the government would take back all the technology.
Like you said, it would be a moral and legal minefield.
Though it might be harder for genuine cyborgs than bio-augmented humans, ala Captain America, Deathstroke, Max Guevara. They would physically be their technology so I'd say they'd have a better case for owning their enhancements.
Two words
induction field.
There is no reason i can't sleep in an induction field and wake up with all my cyborg shit recharged.
I'm not really up to date on the health effects of that. I mean, I know that cell phones are safe, but I feel like this would require something an order of magnitude stronger.
I'd be kinda worried about spending 8 hours a day in an induction field strong enough to charge batteries. Is there any research on the long term health effects of powerful induction fields? I genuinely never thought of the idea so I've got no clue if it's safe or not.
Guys, watch the video I posted a page ago.
The dude in it says
- It's non-radiative. No radiation or electric fields, just magnetic fields, which are generally safe.
- The technology only transfers energy to devices resonating to a specific frequency, and nothing in nature does that.
- The government has set field exposure limits and the technology showcased doesn't exceed those limits.
It turns out that the magnetic field doesn't need to be particularly strong due to resonance frequency physics voodoo.
Of course, if they can replicate skin perfectly, the porn industry will probably be a bit different than it is now.
Plastic surgery would be effected, too.
Robot-porn industry will probably get it first though.
I doubt you need a perfect replication. The human brain is highly malleable - as was posted on the other page, connecting a camera to someone's tongue allowed them to "see" with the data they were receiving, even rerouting and using the visual cortex to do so.
I suspect even if you only had an absurdly low number of sensors - say, 20, you'd find people being able to accurately determine where someone was touching their arm.
I have no doubts that we'd be able to create skin that is functional, but there is more to the sense of feeling that just the ability to determine location of touch.
That is probably the greatest obstacle to voluntary artificial skin grafts, or any artificial limb/implant tbh.
You won't be able to get a robot arm that will make you capable of lifting a ton, as the rest of your organic body wouldn't be able to provide support, so robot arms would probably end up equal to organic arms in terms of conventional use.
Excluding the die-hard cyborgists, I don't see voluntarily cyborgification happening until technology progresses to a point where it artifical skin has greater sense of touch than organic skin, or where an artifical limb can come with infrared sensors or similar extra-sensory capabilities, or the ability to connect to a computing device and control it so much better than through a keyboard/mouse.
I'd still prefer a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Makes you more independant of recharge stations. Voyager 1 and Curiosity are using those. Voyager 1 was launched 1977 and still keeps going. Probably could refine it into an no-recharge solution for the entire lifetime of a human being.
Link, not inlining it since it contains footage of burn damage - nothing extreme but it might be icky to some.
I was so blown away the first time I saw that vid, and seeing it again has not dulled that sense of awe.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-british-pharmacy-chain-roll-out-smart.html
"...a tiny microchip that is swallowed in pill form and whose purpose is to help remind patients to take their medications on time and to offer bio-feedback such as body temperature, heart rate and even sleeping patterns."
Medical science is feeling more and more like a science thanks to stuff like this.
Holy fucking fuck.
My jaw was just dropped for the entirety of that video.
That is incredible.
I'm also curious as to what you mean by this. Services like Facebook and Twitter already have public APIs. What else is necessary?
Isn't the window a form of augmented reality? And I hope whatever protocol evolves is better than HTTP. HTTP hasn't aged well.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
The problem is it's shared reality. It's only really usable if the only person who uses it is you and you alone, and even then, their are security concerns which quickly trump ease-of-use in any practical sense. You can't depend on your calendar if any idiot walking by might mess it up - even if by accident and not malicious intent.
The most successful technology so far has been the deeply personal - personal computers, followed by laptops, followed by smartphones. Environments which follow you everywhere.
We're only just now getting the idea of a mobile environment worked out, and it's happening slowly and painfully - and again, has obvious security concerns and limitations.
We're getting close.
Slap a .50 cal on that and it is literally a Gekko from Metal Gear Solid 4 which came out the same year.
Powering implants is a pretty interesting problem. I think it'll come down to how efficient the implants are relative to the body part they replace. If your cyborg arm doesn't consume much more energy than your real arm, I don't see why you wouldn't want the cyborg version to burn glucose, fatty acids, or ketone bodies (the choice of which would be under control of serum insulin and glucagon hormone concentrations). The big engineering hurdle here is the development of a biochemical pathway that converts biochemical energy into an electric current to cause the contraction of the artificial muscle.
Buf if you need an external power source, you could do a hybrid type system, with electrical energy stored in a battery (that can be charged however which way) and a small backup generator that burns glucose to recharge the battery for when you're away from the outlet. Maybe you can throw in some sort of energy recapture system in there, too. For example, if you lift a heavy weight then put it down, energy can be recaptured in the latter phase. Efficiency!
I wonder how his new skin feel, it probably doesn't because of the burnt nerves but who knows.
Fuck yeah Science!
I keep telling myself not to become overly optimistic but I love reports like this one.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/6718528/Man-controls-robotic-hand-with-thoughts.html (Telegraph article about another patient and research team)
I'd like to note that it is becoming possible, in research environments, to literally connect prostheses to the human nervous system. This makes them feel like the actual limb they replace, and they can be controlled in the same way. There are several engineering problems remaining, but it definitely shows that cyborg limbs would be capable of physical sensation without the cop-out of merely rerouting analogues of the sensations to other channels of perception.
And, note the dates on those bits of news. This was already two years ago.
THEY MAKE ROBOT THAT CAN WALK
FIRST THING THEY DO IS TRY TO PUSH HIM OVER
BIG BULLY PEOPLE
and related
3d printing is fascinating
Bill Gates finances laser 'fence' that targets mosquitoes (to fight malaria)
wiki:
That wouldn't take much to weaponize for the military or corporate buildings IMO.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20011041-501465.html
It's basically a hat with a laser mounted on top that will instantly shoot down any bullet headed your way.
http://osrp.lanl.gov/pacemakers.shtml
Pu-238 is alpha radiation, so it really doesn't take much to shield against it.