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Back in 2008, IBM announced their plan to try and create a computer that more accurately imitated the computing process of the human brain. Now, with a little help from 4 research Universities and DARPA, they’ve produced prototypes of the first few chips and are on the way to building their first, full-fledged robo-brain. If you’re going to run for the hills, now would be a good time to start. The project’s goal is to drastically alter the way in which computers compute by changing their structure to mimic the human brain instead of functioning as calculators. You see, most computers are von Neumann machines, meaning that the memory and processor are separated. The practical result of this is that as you reach the limit of how fast information can be passed from the memory to the processor via the bus, you reach the limit of computing power. In the human brain, the memory and the processors are in thousands of nodes that communicate slower, but simultaneously and radially. IBM’s prototypes are chips that, in quantity, can emulate those nodes.

Back in 2008, IBM announced their plan to try and create a computer that more accurately imitated the computing process of the human brain. Now, with a little help from 4 research Universities and DARPA, they’ve produced prototypes of the first few chips and are on the way to building their first, full-fledged robo-brain. If you’re going to run for the hills, now would be a good time to start. The project’s goal is to drastically alter the way in which computers compute by changing their structure to mimic the human brain instead of functioning as calculators. You see, most computers are von Neumann machines, meaning that the memory and processor are separated. The practical result of this is that as you reach the limit of how fast information can be passed from the memory to the processor via the bus, you reach the limit of computing power. In the human brain, the memory and the processors are in thousands of nodes that communicate slower, but simultaneously and radially. IBM’s prototypes are chips that, in quantity, can emulate those nodes.

I remember when, a decade ago, Kevin Warwick, a professor at the University of Reading, in the U.K., implanted a radio chip in his own arm. The feat caused quite a stir. The implant allowed him to operate doors, lights, and computers without touching anything. On a second version of the project he could even control an electric wheelchair and produce artificial sensations in his brain using the implanted chip. Warwick had become, in his own words, a cyborg. The idea of a cyborg -- a human-machine hybrid -- is common in science fiction and although the term dates back to the 1960s it still generates a lot of curiosity. I often hear people asking, When will we become cyborgs? When will humans and machines merge? Although some researchers might have specific time frames in mind, I think a better answer is: It's already happening. When we look back at the history of technology, we tend to see distinct periods -- before the PC and after the PC, before the Internet and after the Internet, and so forth -- but in reality most technological advances unfold slowly and gradually. That's particularly true with the technologies that are allowing us to modify and enhance our bodies.

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) were awarded no less than $34.5 million by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to continue their outstanding work in the field of prosthetic limb testing, which has seen them come up with the most advanced model yet. Their Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) system is just about ready to be tested on human subjects, as it has proved successful with monkeys. Basically, the prosthetic arm is controlled by the brain through micro-arrays that are implanted (gently) in the head. They record brain signals and send the commands to the computer software that controls the arm. To be honest, it will be interesting to see just how these hair-chips are attached to the brain, but the APL say clinical tests have shown the devices to be entirely harmless. The monkeys didn’t mind them too much, at least.

PC-compatible industrial computers are increasing in computing power at a rapid rate due to the availability of multi-core microprocessor chips, and Microsoft Windows has become the de-facto software platform for implementing human-machine interfaces (HMIs). PCs are also becoming more reliable. With these trends, the practice of building robotic systems as complex multi-architecture, multi-platform systems is being challenged. It is now becoming possible to integrate all the functions of machine control and HMI into a single platform, without sacrificing performance and reliability of processing. Through new developments in software, we are seeing industrial systems evolving to better integrate Windows with real-time functionality such as machine vision and motion control. Software support to simplify motion control algorithm implementation already exists for the Intel processor architecture.