The company behind the awesome looking video game Deus Ex: Human Revolution commissioned Eyeborg to produce this mini-documentary on human enhancement through prosthetics, cybernetics and other augmentation. I’m looking forward to checking out the game now!

This is the first demonstration that this microelectrode array technology can provide useful neuroprosthetic signals allowing a person with tetraplegia to control an external device for an extended period of time.”

In the past 5 years, research into Brain-Computer Interfaces has been progressing rapidly. For example, devices which rest on the scalp are now good enough at reading brain waves that they can be used to play video games. In this TED Talk, Tan Le of Emotiv Systems demonstrates one such device.

Another company, Intendix, offers a similar brain-wave reading (EEG) product which allows it’s users to type on a virtual keyboard using only thoughts. BrainAthlete also uses EEG technology, marketed as a tool for helping athletes find “the zone”.

It makes me wonder whether paralyzed people could use these less invasive devices, at least until the technologies such as BrainGate reach a more advanced stage. Research into direct, physical connections between brains and computers will eventually play an important role, not only in medicine, but in human enhancement.

To help accelerate the process, the X-Prize Foundation is planning to offer a bounty for the development of next-generation BCI. Futurist Ray Kurzweil, who is on the board of the X-Prize Foundation, offers some ideas of how the prize might work in this video. A breakdown and further discussion of Kurzweil’s talk is provided by The Singularity Hub. Kurzweil’s most specific suggestion seems to be exactly what BrainGate is working on — allowing people with locked-in syndrome to communicate. Rod Furlan expresses some other possibilities under consideration in the X-Prize planning process:

Our deep-future vision for the technology was crystal clear: we want to give vision to the blind, new bodies to disabled people and maybe a GPS sixth sense to the willing. We want to communicate with each other and with our technology using thoughts alone – the possibilities are endless.

Hopefully a large cash reward will stimulate some competition in these areas, which everyone will benefit from.

[source: Silicon.com via Singularity Hub]