Lifeboat Foundation

Elon Musk, CEO of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Tesla Motors, Inc, was at Startmeup Hong Kong and talked about what he thought were areas of technological opportunity.

At 37 minutes into this video Elon Musk talks about high potential technology like Hyperloop which he currently does not have time to address electric aircraftgenetics is thorny but is our best shot at many tough diseasesbrain computer interfaces at the neuron level has potential for intelligence augmentationNeural Lace was mentioned.

Scientists from China and the US have found a pioneering way to inject a tiny electronic mesh sensor into the brain that fully integrates with cerebral matter and enables computers to monitor brain activity.

Continue reading “Elon Musk identifies electric aircraft, genetics and neuron scale brain computer interfaces as high potential technologies” »

We hardly need superheroes anymore: engt.co/1JLE7im

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Finally. Bionic eye technology that could give sight back to millions of individuals worldwide is set to start trials.

Adding to the recent buzz surrounding the development of bionic eye systems is news of scientists from Australia who are set to begin trials on The Phoenix99 bionic eye—a fully implantable system that marks a significant breakthrough in neural stimulation technology.

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What drove David Sengeh to create a more comfortable prosthetic limb? He grew up in Sierra Leone, and too many of the people he loves are missing limbs after the brutal civil war there. When he noticed that people who had prosthetics weren’t actually wearing them, he set out to discover why — and to solve the problem with his team from the MIT Media Lab.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.

Continue reading “David Sengeh: The sore problem of prosthetic limbs” »

This give hope!

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AR Surgery, bionic lens for better vision than 20/20, etc. Some really cool things are on the edge of becoming available for patients.

In the future of health, we look at how new technologies are revolutionizing the area of healthcare and wellness.

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The US Military’s experimental research division DARPA have confirmed that they’re to begin work on the world’s first human computer interface. This would effectively allow soldier ‘cyborgs’ to connect directly to computers and ‘talk’ to them.

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Doctors rewired Johnny Matheny’s nerves to work directly with his new prosthetic arm, which works exactly like a real arm.

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Hot damn, our Ghost in the Shell future is getting closer by the day. DARPA announced on Tuesday that it is interested in developing wetware — implantable brain-machine interfaces (BMI) that will allow their users to control computers with their thoughts. The device, developed as part of the Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program, would essentially translate the chemical signals in our neurons into digital code. What’s more, DARPA expects this interface to be no larger than two nickels stacked atop one another.

“Today’s best brain-computer interface systems are like two supercomputers trying to talk to each other using an old 300-baud modem,” Phillip Alvelda, the NESD program manager, said in a statement. “Imagine what will become possible when we upgrade our tools to really open the channel between the human brain and modern electronics.”

The advanced research agency hopes the device to make an immediate impact — you know, once it’s actually invented — in the medical field. Since the proposed BMI would connect to as many as a million individual neurons (a few magnitudes more than the 100 or so that current devices can link with), patients suffering from vision or hearing loss would see an unprecedented gain in the fidelity of their assistive devices. Patients who have lost limbs would similarly see a massive boost in the responsiveness and capabilities of their prosthetics.

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