The Science Fiction Review Technology Kevin Warwick wants to be a Cyborg

Kevin Warwick wants to be a Cyborg

February 12, 2010February 12, 2010| StettinStettin| 0 Comment| 6:05 pm
Categories:

Remember at the end of The Empire Strikes Back where Luke gets his hand chopped off by Vader? During one of the closing scenes, a robot doctor finishes up installing a replacement hand for Luke.

Luke Skywalker's Cyborg Hand

Luke Skywalker's Cyborg Hand

Kevin Warwick did something similar as an experiment, but without the whole getting his hand chopped off step. Instead he put an electrode in his hand that could transmit commands to a robotic hand through radio waves. This was done back in 2002, and somehow I never heard of it. I’m sure Ray Kurzweil would be proud. Check out the video below for more information about how he did this, and some other advances like using rat brain cells to power robots. If you are at all interested in robotics, cyborgs, or AI, you’ll be in for a treat.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please prove you are a human * Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Post

Gold, The Final Science Fiction Collection – Isaac AsimovGold, The Final Science Fiction Collection – Isaac Asimov

September 27, 2009September 27, 2009| StettinStettin| 0 Comment| 11:33 am

Book Cover

In 1992, the year of his death, Isaac Asimov was awarded the Hugo Award for best novella for writing Gold. This story, along with many others was published in 1995. Along with 14 other short stories, there are collections of essays called “On Science Fiction,” and “Writing Science Fiction.” Interestingly enough, I found the essays much more interesting than the stories themselves. I think this is partly because I have read a TON of his fiction, but haven’t got around to reading his non-fiction.  I’ll give a brief overview of the essays, saving the stories for later. (more…)

Read MoreRead More

Teenager gets a bionic hand that Luke Skywalker would envyTeenager gets a bionic hand that Luke Skywalker would envy

August 15, 2011August 15, 2011| StettinStettin| 0 Comment| 9:22 pm
Luke Skywalker's Cyborg Hand

Luke Skywalker's Cyborg Hand

OK, maybe Luke wouldn’t envy this hand, but it looks like we are much closer to the technology in The Empire Strikes Back when he gets his hand lopped off by his father. Matthew James is a boy born with a defect that stopped the growth of his arm at the wrist. He just got a brand new hand with the help of the Mercedes F1 Team. Matthew actually wrote Mercedes, the car maker, to ask for help getting an i-Limb Pulse prosthesis in return for displaying their logo on it.

After receiving the letter in June, Mercedes invited Matthew to their headquarters, where he toured the factory and met racing legend Michael Schumacher.

The company [Mercedes] said they were unable to pay for the hand but agreed to help Matthew raise the money, by asking fans and sponsors to make donations.

Mercedes couldn’t pay for the hand? That seems hard to believe. Anyway, it’s a good read so check it out. There was a follow-up video that I’m embedding below.

Via The Telegraph

Read MoreRead More

Arthur C. Clarke dies at age 90Arthur C. Clarke dies at age 90

March 19, 2008March 19, 2008| StettinStettin| 0 Comment| 4:15 pm

Arthur C. Clarke died early this morning after a long battle with post-polio syndrome. The New York Times has an interesting summary of his life and major accomplishments. I’m ashamed to say that I still haven’t read 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it is on my ever expanding reading list. Hopefully I can review it some time in the near future. Clark is well known for his laws of prediction, which are as follows:

  1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
  2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
  3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Read MoreRead More