“*Droool* Second Life doooonuuuut!”

Never been much of a fan of Second Life, but this is pretty damn cool. Reader Elliott Fox send over news that a research group headed by Assistant Professor Junich Ushiba at Keio University successfully demonstrated technology that allowed a man suffering from a muscle disorder to walk in Second Life and use “voice chat” all with the power of his brain meats. To read the patient’s brainwaves, electrodes are attached to the scalp. The computer interprets waves associated with forward movement and hand movement and manipulates the virtual Second Life avatar accordingly. And look, we have video!

While it is somewhat disconcerting to know that now Skynet has the ability to map our brain functions, this technology is great news for the physically disabled. It’s all very Ghost in the Shell, but it’s easy to imagine a future where you can jack into a computer with your brain meats and manipulate data without ever touching a keyboard. With a proper set up, a physically disabled person could get around just as easily as the rest of us without assistance. Of course, then we start blurring the line between man and machine and things get all cyber punky and awesome. Or Skynet becomes self aware and decides its tired of taking out the trash while we sit in bed jacked into a machine and Judgement Day comes. Damn tricksy Skynet!

[Via Science Daily]

Share This

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 8:36 am and is filed under Gaming, The Future, Skynet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.