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Jesse Sullivan, the man in this video, is using one of the most high-tech prosthetic arms available. But what's truly impressive about it isn't visible to the eye: instead of using a motor, he's controlling the arm with his thoughts. After an amputation, the nerves in a stump remain healthy, at least for a while, and now scientists are making use of this fact to create highly dexterous, thought-controlled prosthetics.

More than 50 severely disabled people in Second Life have been trying out a sophisticated new brain-computer interface (BCI) that lets users freely explore Second Life's virtual world and control their real-world environment. The system was developed by medical engineering company G.Tec of Schiedlberg, Austria as part of a pan-European project called Smart Homes for All. It's the first time the latest BCI technology has been combined with smart-home technology and online gaming. To activate a command, the user focuses their attention on the corresponding icon on a screen. Electroencephalograph (EEG) caps pick up brain signals, which are translated into commands to navigate and communicate within Second Life and Twitter. It can also be used to open and close doors, answer the phone, and control the TV, lights, thermostat, and intercom. G.Tec's system has been tested at the Santa Lucia Foundation Hospital in Rome, Italy.

some researchers at the MIT Media Lab are aiming to put the controls back in people's hands, in a way that provides sophisticated and continuous control and could slash lighting bills by more than half.

Motion controllers used in gaming systems like the Nintendo Wii revolutionised how video games are played. But now a similar device that's more precise - and even works when an object is in its way - will let you try something more futuristic: making movies in virtual environments. Matt Bett and his team from Abertay University in the UK developed the new motion controller that uses electromagnetic sensors to track its 3D position. The location is then mapped in real time to a virtual video camera on a screen (see video above). By moving the controller around, the camera moves around the scene like a real camera on a rig or it can be fixed to a virtual tripod.

in response to comments the Editor comments: "Good points. Main benefit is a highly interactive shared exploration/discussion/planning space (and PR value), but that same functionality, including the 1.5 Gpix display (an interactive version), could be achieved in theory with an enhanced* Oculus RIFT (http://www.kurzweilai.net/why-immersive-virtual-reality-is-the-next-generation-of-gaming-part-2 and http://www.oculusvr.com/ ) with an MMORPG architecture and Kinect/Leap control in an Oblong-type shared environment (http://www.kurzweilai.net/minority-report-arrives-with-oblong-part-ii-mind-blowing-ui) at lower cost and not restricted to one room - in fact, feasible globally via machine translation (http://www.kurzweilai.net/speech-recognition-breakthrough-for-the-spoken-translated-word) and local clones of the imagery and darknet shared DB (access to Internet2 via 100 Gbps lines would also be nice). Extra points for automated POV display based on head, eye, hand, and body-motion tracking and automated EEG-based control and double points for automated mind reading (http://www.kurzweilai.net/neuroscience-the-mind-reader) tied to an NLP/semantic web DB. * "Imagine an HMD with a massive field of view and more pixels than 1080p per eye, wireless PC link, built-in absolute head and hand/weapon/wand positioning, and native integration with some (if not all) of the major game engines, all for less than $1,000 USD," Palmer says. "That can happen in 2013!" (http://www.kurzweilai.net/why-immersive-virtual-reality-is-the-next-generation-of-gaming-part-2)"

Through education, media, and big business, your mind is being controlled. Your mind is distracted with illusions to keep you away from the truth. Reason why America is dumbed down.

Copper Control Cables

Engineers at Stevens Institute of Technology have developed a technique to optically modulate the frequency of a laser beam and create a signal that is disrupted significantly less by environmental factors, says Dr. Rainer Martini. The research provides for enhanced optical communications, allowing mobile units not tied to fiber optic cable to communicate in the range of 100 GHz and beyond, the equivalent of 100 gigabytes of data per second. Eventually, the team hopes to extend the reach into the terahertz spectrum. The frequency or amplitude modulation of middle infrared quantum cascade lasers has been limited by electronics, which are barely capable of accepting frequencies of up to 10 GHz by switching a signal on and off.  Marini and his team have developed a method to optically induce fast amplitude modulation in a quantum cascade laser to control the laser's intensity. Their amplitude modulation system employed a second laser to modulate the amplitude of the middle infrared laser, using light to control light. The current detector is only capable of detecting frequencies up to 10 GHz, but Dr. Martini is confident that a new detector will make the system capable of much higher frequencies. With an optical system that is stable enough, satellites may one day convert to laser technology, resulting in a more mobile military and super-sensitive scanners, as well as faster Internet for the masses, says Martini. Ref.: "Optically induced fast wavelength modulation in a quantum cascade laser," Applied Physics Letters, July 7, 2010.

ScienceDaily (July 11, 2011) - Researchers at Columbia Engineering School have built optical nanostructures that enable them to engineer the index of refraction and fully control light dispersion.

Free Download - StanfordUniversity - January 22, 2009 - Karl Deisseroth is pioneering bold new treatments for depression and other psychiatric diseases. By sending pulses of light into the brain, Deisseroth can control neural activity with remarkable precision. In this short talk, Deisseroth gives an thoughtful and awe-inspiring overview of his Stanford University lab's groundbreaking research in "optogenetics".

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And now, as CNC milling machines and stereolithography (three dimensional printing) devices fall in price to the point of being not out of reach for a hobbyist's workshop, home manufacture of scary "assault weapons" will soon be a few mouse clicks away.

Hospital Laboratory Software & Diagnostic Labs Software help hospitals, clinics and referral diagnostic labs in achieving operational excellence effortlessly.

Researchers for the first time have induced robust regeneration of nerve connections that control voluntary movement after spinal cord injury, showing the potential for new therapeutic approaches to paralysis and other motor function impairments.

Controlling a computer just by pointing at the screen seems weird at first - but perhaps it's something we are going to get used to

""We've developed the enabling technologies to create upper-extremity prosthetics that are more natural in appearance and use, a truly revolutionary advancement in prosthetics," said APL's Michael McLoughlin, the program manager. "Now, in Phase 3, we are ready to test it with humans to demonstrate that the system can be operated with a patient's thoughts and that it can provide that patient with sensory feedback, restoring the sensation of touch.""

Researchers at LaserMotive have devised a way to beam lasers to power military bases and drones, possibly helping to save lives, since delivering fuel to battle zones can be a dangerous task in wartime. Although still largely in the R&D stage, laser power beaming has many other potential uses, which include powering vehicles, replacing electric power wiring and transmission lines in difficult places, and even launching rockets into orbit. The beam is about 8 inches wide as it leaves the transmitter - and then spreads wider as it travels. The beam emitter is located at a ground-based unit and operated by a person, who could control it from the same location or remotely from an entirely different place altogether. The operator uses the machine to fire the laser beam at a photovoltaic collector located on an unmanned autonomous vehicle (UAV), small plane, or helicopter. The current range of the system is about a kilometer. When the laser hits the photovoltaic device, the photons in the light beam are converted to electricity to fly the AUV. Topics: AI/Robotics | Energy | Physics/Cosmology | Survival/Defense