The First Real Step Into the Future Since the Internet
If one is a fan of science fiction, in any sense, the lack of real technological progress in the last several decades in slightly disappointing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we have made things smaller and faster than one could have ever imagined. (Right now, I am typing this on the cheapest laptop that Mac makes, but its size and speed would blow away a 1980’s man.) But making things smaller is only technological progress in a narrow sense. There has not been a real breakthrough that has really seemed impossible for quite a while. Until today.
In the most recent issue of Nature, Professor John P. Donoghue of Brown University wrote an article on his successful experiment with a computer chip that is controlled by thought. This chip was implanted into the brain of a paralyzed man, allowing him to control his television and computer using only his thoughts. The man was able to write emails, change channels, and play pong, all without ever moving a muscle.
This is bigger than flying cars or cloning, which have typically served as the benchmarks of the future. Those developments have been imaginable for some time, leaving scientists the task of working out the details. Using only one’s thoughts to control external objects has been practically unimaginable…until now.
I think that we are now officially in the future.
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July 12th, 2006 at 8:26 pm
A chip in the head controlled by thought and he can only use it for tv and computer? I’ll be extra excited when he can use it to turn a page or write a letter – although the future scares me either way.
July 14th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Well, he can use it to write an email. And let’s be honest, the email is the new letter. But I agree, it will mean more once he can fill his coffee in the morning, light the pilot light on his stove, and in general make people around him feel creepy using only a set of levitating plates.