Digestion Powered Cyborgs

This article from popsci.com almost makes me want to move the cyborg countdown clock ahead from 2 o'clock to six o'clock. The one missing core technology for the cyborg takeover is some sort of inexhaustible energy source capable of supplying a large and continuous flow of current. Well, it looks like that core tech has been found.

By implanting a biofuel cell into the abdomens of several female cockroaches, researchers at Case Western Reserve University have successfully created a power generator that runs on the bugs' natural digestive processes. The generator could be used to power sensors and other "cyborg insect" hardware installed on the bugs.

This is another paradox of good and bad news for humanity. The popsci.com article mentions all the good a cyborg insect could do like finding earthquake victims and searching for improvised explosive devices. But a power supply WAS the last missing piece of the cyborg puzzle.

A portable and inexhaustible power supply combines with artificial intelligence and automated robotic manufacturing/material handling to form a foundation for the cyborg revolution.  With all the tech in place it's only a matter of happen-stance that will determine the way the cyborg revolution 1.0 will unfold.

It makes so much sense when you think about the role the biological portion of the cyborg would play. When you think about it a robot is 100% mechanical and is engineered from the ground up. Cyborgs start with the human body as a framework to build on and work in nano technology along with bio-engineering to create an enhanced humanoid that trumps any robot. Indeed the future of robots is to serve the cyborg masters and their automated factories.

"...if researchers can manage to keep the additional load on the bug to a minimum and continue to keep finding clever ways to let the bug’s biology--rather than additional augmentations--do the bulk of the work, we could soon have armies of sensor-laden insect cyborgs ready to take on environmental disasters, infrastructure monitoring operations, and even dangerous military reconnaissance missions."  ~  popsci.com/technology/

GRASP Quad Copter Builds A Structure

GRASP is a University of Pennsylvania research center with $10 million in funding. General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) describes their work as such...

"Pioneering GRASP researchers are building autonomous vehicles and robots, developing self-configuring humanoids, and making robot swarms a reality. Our doctoral students are trained in theory and practice and mentored to become leaders in research and education. The graduates of the interdisciplinary Master's in Robotics program are uniquely equipped to face research and development challenges of the fast-growing robotics industry."  ~ www.grasp.upenn.edu

I first heard about the work going on at GRASP last in 2011 when Buzz Out Loud mentioned it in a report about robotics. Lately, GRASP has been featured in the blogosphere because of a certain video featuring a group autonomous of quad copters playing the theme from a James Bond movie. This is a great example of coordinated swarm robotics and it gets attention because they are small and cute and folks can reconize the James Bond tune. Good song choice guys! Buzz Out Loud co-host, Brian Tong, even memarks during the video about how cyborgs will use these precision flying quad copters to "rain death down from above" during the coming cyborg take-over.


However, I find this video even more likely to be an accurate glimpse into how the cyborgs will use autonomous flying vehicles. Specifically, they will use them as builders of much larger, ground based, cyborg weapons platform. 

It seems more likely that swarms of flying robots will be builders rather than used as attack aircraft. Here's my thinking. First, these flying vehicles have to be light weight, especially if they need to carry a payload. Their strength comes from numbers. If an object is too heavy for one copter they can coordinate and use many copters to lift something like a structural beam or machinery into place.

If they were used as an attack platform the quads would have to be much larger, heavier and need huge amounts of power to stay aloft while carrying heavy guns and enough ammo to sustain a fight. Although who is to say a flying swarm of tiny one-shot copters couldn't be an effective first wave attack. Battlefield re-arming stations "manned" by ground cyborgs could reduce the time it would take to return to the battle while also being more effective at targeting humans hiding in the ruins of fallen cities.

www.grasp.upenn.edu 

But for me, I would think the main application for autonomous flying vehicles would be for the manufacturing and replication of larger cyborgs and infrastructure. The limits imposed by power supplies and gravity would mean these flying robots need to stay small.  One logical idea would be that the cyborgs will base their manufacturing operations under water to take advantage of the simulated reduced gravity. Under water manufacturing could allow the autonomus robots to build huge attack cyborgs that would rise out of the sea near major cities with little warning. This could be the very first attack wave human encounter when the cyborg take-over begins. Even scarier still I can picture a huge cyborg as tall as a skyscraper emerge from the sea. Immediately it releases massive swarms of autonomus one-shot flying robots. So massive is the swarm that some are assigned to air defense clogging the skys while others scourer the ground hunting for human targets. When out of ammo or power they can return the the gargantuan mother-cyborg and be re-fitted for another launch.

They can read your thoughts now. 

This article is about an astonishing method researchers employed to output audible sounds of words patience were thinking of. So I would imagine a subject with lots of wires coming out of their skull while positioned under a powerful scanning device. Scientists in another room would hear what the subject is thinking from a little speaker. It reminds me of the eureka moment when Alexander Graham Bell spoke to his partner Watson through the first prototype telephone.

"Watson, come here, I want to see you" 

The the cyborg voice can be heard at this link, another BBC news service report. The first thirty seconds are the actual audio from the researchers labs. If you listen to it you may agree with me that it sounds exactly like the Sci-Fi movie interpretations in films. It's kind of a scary sound, ghostly and high tech. The ghost in the machine perhaps.

While "mind reading" is not one of the core technologies needed for the cyborg revolution to take off it does represent a significant step toward cyborgization. The human mouth and vocal cords would very very difficult to replicate in an electro-mechanical form. A three inch speaker for a mouth seems kind of lame so the logical technologies for cyborg citezens to communicate with would naturaly be through thought.

Imagine. You see a pretty cyborg on the bus and you work up the nerve to open a "com" channel to attract her attention. That analogy might be a bit twenty first century since there is no reason cyborgs would maintain two different sexes or rely on others to fend off loneliness.

"Based on signals from listening patients, a computer model was used to reconstruct the sounds of words that patients were thinking of. The method may in future help comatose and locked-in patients communicate." ~ BBC UK News Service

3D Printers Now Print Human Body Parts

Since about 1998 I`ve been counting the days until I can go out and buy a `home` 3D printer. The MakerBot folks have achieved this goal with their DIY $2000.00 3D printer. 3D printing has a very wide range of applications but as it pertains to the coming cyborg revolution is especially critical.

Three-D printing is one of a handful of core technologies that will help usher in the cyborg takeover (in fact the only core technologies that does not exist yet is a suitable cyborg power supply). Along with artificial intelligence and automated manufacturing and material warehousing, 3D printing will allow robots to build themselves.

I read this article but the image alone says it all. The researcher`s used a 3D laser heating process to fuse synthetic resins with titanium metal during the 3D printing of the jaw bone. The synthetic jaw bone is stronger and designed as a prosthetic replacement for folks with debilitating jaw conditions. A very worthwhile bit of science that will unfortunately be used against humanity by the coming cyborg revolution.

The article is about a replacement jaw for a patient and there is even a photo of the teeth graphed onto the 3D printed jaw bone. But if they can attach teeth to it, they can attach other things like electronic devices to the 3D jaw bone. How about an enhanced taste/smell circuit that could give a cyborg the senses akin to a Bloodhound while tracking down escaped humans? How about a jaw loaded with explosives that can be ejected from the cyborg-body and used like a grenade? Howe about a jaw with a frikkin' laser?

I think if you read this article the application for cyborgization are huge.

"The whole thing is rather impressive, if a little disconcerting. The team behind this world first say that this operation opens the way for more 3D-printed patient-required body parts." ~ pcworld.com article "
http://www.pcworld.com/article/249359/3d_printers_now_print_human_body_parts.html

Rob Spence is Eyeborg

Talk about laying the primitive ground work yourself, Rob Spence lost an eye in a gun accident and went on to inspire a small group of engineers to build him a prosthetic eye with a wireless video camera in it.

This experience led Rob to make a documentary film about the human "cyborg people" that are living today. Check out the Eyeborg blog for clips about the cyborg people Rob interviews for the film. A blind man, named Miika Terho, is participating in a research program that has connected a video signal to his optic nerve allowing him to see objects like a banana. eyeborgblog.com

Hello World,

This is my first post on a new blog I call the Cyborg Countdown Clock. Much like the concerned scientists of the cold war era I have created a 12 hour countdown I'll use to indicate how far humanity is along the path to cyborg domination.

The original doomsday clock created in 1947 by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

To support the countdown indication I will post my thought about a wide variety of articles I feel contribute to the eventual cyborg revolution. Sometimes the relevant links may not be so obvious, like how a new nano-ocular device can improve the eyesight of folks with sever cataracts, but I hope to expand on the idea that today's new discoveries are the groundwork for tomorrows cyborg prototype.

Some may think we are already half way there with smart phones attached to our heads in environments bathed in high energy radio frequencies. But I think the journey has just begun. My generation has seen technology change the world to  a high degree. So it logical that technology will change us too. We are also an impatient lot and would not hesitate to incorporate new technology, even within our bodies, so that a short term goal is accomplished. With that I start the clock at two o'clock