     |
I’m not particularly fond of roaches, but I don’t exactly hate them either. I’d just rather not come face to face with any one of these insects because creepy crawly insects just give me the heebie jeebies. That said, I’m still on the fence when it comes to the RoboRoach project by Backyard Brains.
The RoboRoach kit, which is currently up for funding on Kickstarter, includes the “backpack”, a helmet, a battery, and recording electrodes. You’ll have to be comfortable with handling roaches, because you’ll have to anesthetize them before performing surgery on them to place wires into their antennae.
Once everything’s all set up, then you can begin to control the cyborg roach using your smartphone.
In a nutshell, here’s how the RoboRoach works: When you send a command from your mobile phone, the backpack sends pulses to the antenna, which causes its neurons to fire, such that the roach to think there is a wall on one side. The result? The roach turns!
Attempting to control something alive might have ethical implications, and Backyard Brains has got that covered in their ethical statement. They also explain that the roach doesn’t get shocked or hurt when the RoboRoach is on in their FAQs, so you might want to check that section out if you’re concerned about the well-being of these insects.
A minimum pledge of $100(USD) will get you one of your very own RoboRoach kits. Though you’ll have to spend at least $150 if you want them to include some live cockroaches for you to play with.
[via C|NET]
At today's prices, building a Six Million Dollar Man would cost around $31 million. Of course, being a TV show means the Office of Scientific Intelligence doesn't have too many bionic employees, but that might not the case in the future. Nicolas Giuseppone and a team at the Université de Strasbourg and CNRS have created thousands of nano-machines to replicate the movement of human muscle fibers. Weaving them all together, the machines are able to make a coordinated contraction movement that stretches and contracts. For the moment, the supramolecular polymers can only stretch a matter of micrometers, but in the future they could be used to create artificial muscles, small robots or even materials that can move. Hopefully it'll also give us the power to leap tall buildings, so we'll be outside practicing our sound effects.
Nano-machines built to mimic human muscle could help power cyborgs, keep the OSI budget down originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink
PhysOrg | 
CNRS (Translated) | Email this | Comments Helping people who can’t walk walk again is an admirable goal, and that’s what the Kinect Kinetic Orthosis is supposed to do. It’s specifically designed for people suffering from neurological disorders that affect the strength of their legs.
The Kickstart Kinetic Orthosis from Cadence Biomedical will store kinetic energy from the legs and dispense it to propel the foot forward during the extension phase of locomotion. It was inspired by horses, whose long tendons span multiple joints and allow for a highly efficient walking and running. It’s not bulky nor does it have heavy batteries, giving its users more freedom.
https://vimeo.com/46660319
It’s aimed at people who suffered from strokes, incomplete spinal cord injuries, ALS, muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis. Cadence is currently conducting clinical studies aimed at quantifying Kickstart’s benefits and will report this data in 2013. There’s no word yet when it will be available.
[via Medgadget]
Growing human tissue is old hat, but being able to measure activity inside flesh is harder -- any electrical probing tends to damage the cells. But a new breakthrough from Harvard researchers has produced the first "cyborg" tissue, created by embedding functional, biocompatible nanowires into lab-grown flesh. In a process similar to making microchips, the wires and a surrounding organic mesh are etched onto a substrate, which is then dissolved, leaving a flexible mesh. Groups of those meshes are formed into a 3D shape, then seeded with cell cultures, which grow to fill in the lattice to create the final system. Scientists were able to detect signals from heart and nerve cell electro-flesh made this way, allowing them to measure changes in response to certain drugs. In the near-term, that could allow pharmaceutical researchers to better study drug interaction, and one day such tissue might be implanted in a live person, allowing treatment or diagnosis. So, would that make you a cyborg or just bionic? We'll let others sort that one out.
Harvard scientists grow human cells onto nanowire scaffold to form 'cyborg' skin originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
PermalinkTG Daily | Harvard | Email this | Comments 
In the hubbub of a late evening soiree in the center of Cologne, Mad Catz unveiled its new gaming keyboard. While the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 keyboard is certainly punctuation-rich, it's aiming to match all those periods with just as many functions and permutations. The keyboard has a modular design, including a new touchscreen interface offering up some new swipe and gesture controls across both gaming titles and day-to-day PC use. Mad Catz reckons it's the final piece in their gaming range puzzle, complementing both the aforementioned R.A.T. mice and its F.R.E.Q gaming headsets. We take a closer look -- and throw in the suitably bombastic promo video -- after the break.
Continue reading Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 gaming keyboard announced at Gamescom (hands-on)
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals
Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 gaming keyboard announced at Gamescom (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Aug 2012 05:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |MadCatz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 keyboard | Email this | Comments 
When we envision our transhumanist future, it's a little more profound than simply adding a sixth finger... but we suppose you've gotta start somewhere. Instructables user and employee Frenzy gave himself a rather primitive extra digit as part of a project for an Electronics and Robotics class at San Francisco State University. Sadly he doesn't provide step-by-step instructions for building your own cyborg appendage, but it doesn't seem too difficult. Frenzy borrowed heavily from other projects, using EMG sensors to trigger a servo controlled by an Arduino, which he strapped to the back of a glove. Like we said, doesn't seem particularly hard, once you figure out how to get the microcontroller to play nice with the sensors. Obviously this is just one small step step for DIY cyborgs. Next, we need to graph on a few extra arms to make one-man liveblogging a much simpler endeavor. To see Primitive Transhumanism #2: Sixth Finger in action, head on past the break.
Continue reading DIY cyborg appendage is less exciting than it sounds (video)
DIY cyborg appendage is less exciting than it sounds (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jun 2012 02:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |Frenzy (Instructables) | Email this | Comments 
You'd be more than forgiven for not knowing who Klas Tybrandt is. The doctoral student at Linköping University is hardly a household name, but his latest creation may garner him some serious attention. The Swedish scientist has combined special transistors he developed into an integrated circuit capable of transmitting positive and negative ions as well as biomolecules. The advantage here is that, instead of simply controlling electronics, the circuits carry chemicals which can have a variety of functions, such as acetylcholine which the human body uses to transmit signals between cells. Implantable circuits that traffic in neurotransmitters instead of electrical voltages could be a key step in taking making our cyborg dreams a reality. We're already counting down the days till we're more machine than man.
Bio-chemical circuits may make you a man of a machine originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 May 2012 06:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |Phys.org | Email this | Comments 
A Team of Russian researchers are building a conceptual mind-transfer android, and we're definitely not talking about Ice Cream Sandwich. However bizarre, their goal is to help mankind achieve immortality using a combination of humanoid robots and interstellar space travel to get away from a dangerous and overcrowded planet -- but most of the needed technology seems so far off that we could probably power cycle the world's slowest Linux computer a million times before we see any of it. One prototype includes the torso of an android that will one day house a a computer rig that would be theoretically capable of acting as a personal proxy -- essentially, a place to upload "human souls." This absolutely insane über-ambitious project is the stuff of science fiction, but the big shots over in the birthplace of Tetris say it'll all be possible by 2045. Need more convincing? Check out the two videos after the break.
Continue reading Russian researchers build partial android for bizarre mind-transfer project (video)
Russian researchers build partial android for bizarre mind-transfer project (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 May 2012 08:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
PermalinkPlasticPals | YouTube (1), YouTube (2) | Email this | Comments 
