Captain Cyborg Lives!. Robots 1: Humans 0 [The Register]

Professor Kevin Warwick, of the University of Reading, is working on a means of capturing the motions of one human and replaying them in another. This was one of the tech concepts in the book Hardwired. It was referred to as "wired reflexes", and was one of the many technologies that lived in that world. One of the issues they had was that the creator's biometrics didn't always match that of the end user, so the moves of a 5'5" 150 lb martial arts expert didn't always translate well into the body of a 6' tall steroid popping 250 lb person. Interesting to see technology finally catching up with a book that came out in 1989.

Possible (ab)uses:

• Lockdown in prisons. Get a prisoner to go fetal for a period of time when you need to transport them or during riots.
• Teaching muscle memory based skills to large groups of people quickly. By gently guiding them through the moves (who says the impulse has to be set to full strength?) you can get a large group to quickly master basic skills or learn new, more advanced moves.
• To directly stimulate the pleasure center, much like the Wire described in Niven's Ringworld series of books.
• To remotely control  a device that in form matches a human. Researchers have already managed to get monkeys to control cursors with the use of brain implants, why not have people contolling robots, for the ultimate in telepresence.

UPDATE: New Scientist article with counterpoint.

11:14:24 AM    

Is iPod angling to be device du jour?. Apple Computer's digital music player could begin to mature into a handheld and maybe more, say analysts and Mac enthusiasts. But Apple itself is saying don't get carried away. [CNET News.com: Personal Technology]

Given that Jobs has come out in the past and publicly blasted people for using Palm devices, I highly doubt that we'll be seeing iPods as fully blown PDAs any time soon. However I do see a time in the near future, when color high res LCD or OLED price points get low enough, that we will see an iPod that has a color screen and the ability to playback video that is either stored on the device or streamed from a bluetooth connection. Ideally I'd like to see an iPod as a mini video editor/photo viewer, with an optional keyboard connection or Newton-like handwriting interface that allows you to mark up/tag your data in the field, speeding editing once you get back to your desktop/laptop.

10:03:11 AM    

Buzzword De Jour: Distributed Computing (hereafter Dist Comp). A series of computers, connected via a network that all work together to solve  problem or set of probems.

Sony is talking about using this in their next generation of PlayStation devices, IBM is turning the Department of Energy on to it, and it has been used for a few years to find a cure for cancer, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, and for folding the proteins of the Human Genome.

While I don't mind the idea of harvesting unused cycles of computing time for use in things to better mankind, but gaming? That's a bit much to ask. Questions regarding the Playstation 3 and Dist Comp:

• How is this going to work? Will my PS3 be "always on", hogging up both power and bandwidth? If so, that's a pretty powerful incentive not to get one, no matter how good the games look.
• If I try to play off a network, how will that effect gameplay? Will AI be "dumber" since it can't use networked resources to out think me? Will the cology of the world I'm playing in suffer since, again, it cannot use the Dist Comp resources that would optimally be available to it?
• Alternately, how will lots of players effect a MMORGP [Massive/Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game]? Will each players machine be responsible for "thinking" for a certain amount of the game world surroiunding the character, allowing for more cycles to be dedicated to rendering or AI as people clump up and/or team together? That could make for interesting dynamics as people group, since  their AI opponents will get smarter at a rate that is proportional to the size of the player... Yet breaking off and running into the wilderness to escape will facilitate the enemies losing tactical ability as they will get "dumber."
  
  This would allow for rich NPC AI in cities, as users would tend to congregate there, and for parties to fight tactically savvy opponent hordes that would get more panicy and reckless as their numbers get whittled down... Limiting the weighted options that the horde has based on the number of players in the area (which helps determine the size of said horde) coud allow for interseting dynamics. Artillery comes into play only if there is group of 8 or more players in a formation, yet a lone player could sneak into a castle. Interesting.

9:53:24 AM