Article: Cyborgs

[bchip]

Holy Mackerel Batman!

Will we ever control the world with our minds?

For decades, controlling computers by thought was the stuff of science fiction. But now we are tantalisingly close to a breakthrough. The question is, does it create more problems?

www.bbc.com

The reality of being a cyborg in 2019 is much less dramatic – but still incredible. In 2012, as part of a research programme led by Jennifer Collinger, a biomedical engineer at the University of Pittsburgh, and funded by the US government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), Jan Scheuermann became one of a tiny handful of people to be implanted with a brain-computer interface. The 53-year-old woman, a quadriplegic due to the effects of a degenerative disorder, has two cables attached to box-like sockets in her head, which connect to what looks like a video game console.


Scheuermann can use this brain-computer interface to control a robotic arm with her thoughts, well enough to feed herself chocolate. Three years later she successfully flew a fighter aircraft in a computer simulator.