Another step into the future for cybernetics
December 18, 2014 7:58 PM   Subscribe

Colorado shoulder-level double-amputee Les Baugh successfully controls two robot arms by thought alone, allowing him to put cups on shelves and perhaps buy a soda from a machine. BusinessInsider has more details.

No word yet on whether the soda will be orange or lemon-lime.
posted by Pope Guilty (8 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
It seems to me that the bottleneck here is software, which is nice given the nature of the surgery. It's still probably the case that the state of the art with respect to extremely fast and extremely good online algorithms (here in this case, online means "not batch") for pattern recognition are for ad-selling, though. Dunno whether that's good or not
posted by curuinor at 8:15 PM on December 18, 2014


We live in a time where a man can kick ass and chew bubble gum.
posted by furtive at 9:04 PM on December 18, 2014


Shit, man. It's not gonna be that long before elective limb-replacements are a thing. Bionic rock climbers. Deep sea divers. Skateboarders. Shit, let's get some cyborg-ass mother fuckers launched into space!
posted by cmoj at 12:06 AM on December 19, 2014


Pretty fucking amazing.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 12:33 AM on December 19, 2014


There's an alternate time-line where I actually took college seriously my first time through. In that timeline my analogue is designing stuff like this.
posted by oddman at 6:20 AM on December 19, 2014


Holy shit. Just... holy shit. If it weren't real, it would look exactly like a sci-fi movie trying to look real. (The small finger movements while he's concentrating on something else are the super cool thing to me.)
posted by quin at 11:09 AM on December 19, 2014


... as someone who will eventually have severe mobility issues with my hands, this has me in tears. I am so happy to see this progressing so fast. Eventually I'm going to be unable to type, play games, or do anything that requires hand motion in fine detail. I'm 33 and it is already starting to limit what I can do.

But to see this? I have hope again. Hope that when my hands do finally become useless, arthritic claws like my great grandmother's did, I can have them replaced with something that works, that doesn't hurt, and that will let me keep my independence and hobbies.
posted by strixus at 12:56 PM on December 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


also you could totally have pop on optional ones that were like, badass gi-joe villain style articulated chromed gauntlets.

that's what i'm thinking at least, as someone who has a family history of stupid joint problems/arthritis and wrist problems.

oh, and they better make badass industrial robot/servo noises too. i'm gonna feel ripped off if that isn't at least an option.
posted by emptythought at 1:14 AM on December 20, 2014


« Older "Does this mask smell like nitrous oxide to you?"   |   "Stephen Colbert": Great host? Or *the greatest*... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments