There are million different angles to discuss here, but by far the most interesting idea is a gradual, mutual, acquisitional merger – the pending-yet-not-far-off arrival of homeostasis between biological and mechanical life.
We’ve been in love with Team Skeletonics’ human-powered exoskeleton for years, and all throughout, it’s pretty much been the same mechanical and aesthetic configuration. But it now looks like they’ve been refining in the background, and might be bringing something new out to play.
When a giant Japanese company that makes robots starts collaborating with a giant Japanese company that makes houses at the same time the Japanese government begins funding public robotics, awesomeness seems likely to follow.
Prosthetic maker RSLSteeper has been around for over 90 years, but marketing seems to be a relatively recent endeavor. Their Bebionic3 super awesome robotic hand is all over the tubes right now, but nobody knows from whence it came!
A new device gives the blind 576 pixels of vision, and that’s awesome. But this and other developments herald the infancy of something much more profound: Having your healthy, functional eyes removed and replaced with something far better. HOT DAMN!
Obviously this makes zombies seem a lot more doable and calls into question the effectiveness of the “You just gotta destroy the brain” contingency, but of equal importance is the possibility of novel treatments for those with traumatic spinal injuries.
The BBC is assembling a very respectable compendium on the past, current, and possible future states of bionics, or cybernetics, or human augmentation, or just, you know, the modular nature of future human bodies.