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Keven Walgamott using a prosthetic arm controlled by the mind. (Image reproduced with permission from the Center for Neural Interfaces of the University of Utah.)
If you think that totally immersive virtual reality will require a combination of the complete body to reproduce all the senses, promising research has been done in the field of medical prosthesis, which shows that we are on the road to computing. brain. interfaces that will make it all irrelevant.
Scientists from the University of Utah started with an arm created by DEKA Research & Development Corp., a New Hampshire company founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen.
Keven Walgamott. (Image reproduced with permission from the Center for Neural Interfaces of the University of Utah.)
They then connected it to a system that exploits a person's nervous system.
Today, this system, Utah's inclined electrode array, consists of 100 microelectrodes implanted in the patient's arm. The system reads the signals sent by the brain and translates them into commands to the prosthetic arm. But he also reads the signals from the arm and sends them back to the brain.
At the moment, the electrodes need to be connected to an external computer, but the researchers plan to create a wireless version.
"We have changed the way we send this information to the brain for it to fit the human body," said the PhD student in biomedical engineering Jacob George in an announcement released this week by the US. university. "We are making more biologically realistic signals."
Keven Walgamott, who lost his left hand and part of his arm following an electrical accident 17 years ago, was among those tested. With this new prosthetic hand, he was able to pick up an egg without cracking it, pick the grapes without crushing it and hold his wife's hand.
According to the announcement, he could do it with "a feeling in the fingers similar to that of a valid person".
Of course, 100 microelectrodes are just a drop in the bucket. Our hands alone have more than 1000 nerve endings per square inch of skin.
But as computers and sensors continue to shrink, making it is only a matter of time.
So, will we eventually have Matrix style jacks that plug into the back of the head?
Something like that. But do not get one. There will be wireless upgrades soon after, and anyone who has installed one of these connectors will look really stupid.
A more important question is what will happen to our body when we are in virtual reality. Will it look like a nap? Will there be an integrated feature that will flex our muscles and knock us down so that our body does not deteriorate as long as we are in the world? Will there be automatic timers that will take us out of virtual reality and force us to take breaks? Will we have special seats for virtual reality, or will we need to get into some sort of life support pod?
Given the speed with which technology is advancing, there is a good chance that we will see it all in our lifetime. Teleworking will take on a whole new meaning.
Watch a video of the University of Utah system in action below:
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