Advancing Technologies

Below is a toned-down version of a presentation I did for my lit class.  Obviously, this isn't addressing digital literacies, but I think that these advances show the direction we may be heading.  Probably safe to say that things like the following won't be available to the masses for quite some time.  But I think it shows just how important digital literacy is - not just for current and future students, but for all of us.

Kevin Warwick

Kevin Warwick is a professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading in England; he is a leading researcher in robotics, artificial intelligence and biomedical engineering.

1998 - Warwick had a silicon chip implanted in his arm. The chip sent out radio waves alerting the computers in the cybernetics department of his actions. The computer said "Hello" to him when he entered the building. When he got close to his lab, the doors opened and the light came on.

2002 - Warwick and his wife Irena had electrodes implanted in their wrists and were hooked up to computers with wires from their arms. Every time Irena closed her hand, Warwick would "feel a charge" in his finger. Her nervous system was "talking" to his. This was the first successful experiment of person-to-person communication via the nervous system.

"The direction I am interested in ultimately is linking up to the human brain: can we give people extra memory? Can we allow people to communicate just by thinking to each other? My goal in life is to bring about thought communication between people. That's what I would like to achieve." - Kevin Warwick

Here's Warwick's homepage: http://www.kevinwarwick.com/
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Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)

2000 - Electrodes were implanted in a human brain. Sensors were taped to shoulders and forehead to monitor electrical activity of muscle contractions. The subject was able to spell out words - just by thinking about them.

2003 - Electrodes were attached to the outside of the skull. The subjects were able to turn on appliances, change TV channels, change volume levels - just by thinking about it.

2009 - Emotiv releases brain-wave headset for video games?
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Thought Helmets

2008 - The US DoD awarded $4 million contract to three universities to study "thought helmets." The helmet is made up of 128 electrodes buried in a soldier's helmet. Researchers are attempting to develop software that would detect speech-related brainwaves. The thoughts could then be transmitted to another helmet and spoken in a robotic voice. They are estimating 10-20 years to develop this technology.

Here's an article: http://www.physorg.com/news141314439.html
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Brain-to-Brain Communication

May 2009

At the University of Southampton, two people were attached to EEG amplifiers. The first person thought of a series of binary digits, imagining moving their left arm for zero and moving their right arm for one. The PC detected the stream of digits and flashed an LED lamp at two different frequencies - one frequency for zero and another frequency for one. The pattern of the flash is too subtle to be picked up visually by the second person - but it is picked up by the electrodes measuring the visual cortex of the brain.  The PC could then decipher whether a zero or a one was transmitted to the brain.

"Whilst BCI is no longer a new thing and person to person communication via the nervous system was shown previously in work by Professor Kevin Warwick from the University of Reading, here we show, for the first time, true brain to brain interfacing." - Dr. Christopher James, US Institute of Sound and Vibration Research

Read the article here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091006102637.htm

Watch the experiment here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93p7oDkA5WA
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Future Possibilities?

• From CNN.com

"By the middle of the 21st century it will be possible to download your brain to a supercomputer, according to a leading thinker on the future.

Ian Pearson, head of British Telecom's futurology unit, told the UK's Observer newspaper that the rapid advances in computing power would make cyber-immortality a reality within 50 years."

Link to the article: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/05/23/brain.download/