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| Matthew McKee (2006) |
Well we're almost there! Scientists have been developing chips that find a home in your brain and deliver signals which move a cursor across a screen resulting in simple point and click capabilities. This has radically helped people like "Patient S3", so called for confidentiality reasons, a woman who lost control of her limbs and vocal chords in the 90's. She has successfully been moving cursors across screens successfully for 1000 days now! What a great development for people with such life changing disabilities as hers.
It doesn't stop there though. The scientists conducting the tests have said:
"Our objective with the neural interface is to reach the level of performance of a person without a disability using a mouse"
What a bizarre step to becoming a synergy of man and machine! I can picture the controversy now...
[Source:
New Scientist via
io9]
If I could want any one thing from a human being it would be the ability to look up and beyond your limitations: be they physical, mental or spiritual. Throughout our recorded recent history we have been repeatedly breaking from the shackles that have limited our true potentiality. From the moment we are born we are relentlessly striving for the future. We are bought up to endlessly anticipate what is to come. A lot of us aren't really prepared for today but live in a society that is endlessly talking of the future, of what you “could” achieve or what the politicians will eventually provide. But have we become a culture of apathy that doesn't take responsibility for the world that we live in? Living in the UK I'm personally very familiar with cynicism and moaning. Although sometimes charming and funny with it I think the British are keen to blame and complain. I myself have been caught by this rare ailment and often find myself dismissing things before I've ever weighed up their actual possibility. 
It's called Masdar, and will be with us is five to ten years. This is Abu Dhabi's new city that is going to be powered entirely by solar power. All cars will be left at the gates of the city and from there you can go by foot of by their underground podcars. Powered by solar and suspended by magnets, these devices will transport you from one place to another without the need for a driver. This is a wonderful step for humanity by showcasing what our future potential really is.
