Do some scientists have too much time on their hands? From the Japan Times Online–
KYOTO (Kyodo) A team of Japanese and U.S. researchers succeeded in transmitting a monkey’s brain signals over the Internet from the United States to cause a humanoid robot in Japan to walk, the Japanese team leader said Tuesday.
“There may come an era when you could move a remotely located robot as if it is yourself and play tennis with it,” said Mitsuo Kawato, research director of a Japan Science and Technology Agency research institute in Seika, Kyoto Prefecture.
The U.S. researchers at Duke University in North Carolina pinned down correlated patterns between a monkey’s brain nerve signals and leg movements. The monkey was trained to walk upright on a treadmill, its brain studded with electrodes to read the signals.
They are trying to prove a monkey can move a robot half way around the world? What possible use could that have?
Among the technology’s potential developments would be prosthetic legs that could be moved by a paralyzed person’s thoughts.
Now that’s interesting. A quadripelegic loses so much use of their body, you would seem to think they have to feel trapped. This would give them freedom, if the technology works and can be applied to humans.
The 6 million dollar man(with adjustments for inflation of course) may not be fiction anymore.
Hat tip- Japundit who quips– ‘Wouldn’t playing tennis with yourself result in endless rallies?’
