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#27 Avatar Technology Digest / New 'e-skin' tech turns your body into a walking display
Welcome friends to our weekly Avatar technology digest report. As always, we are happy to inform you on the topics of cybermedicine, nano and biotechnologies, robotics and artificial intelligence. So many really interesting things have happened this week, here are some we have chosen for you.
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1) First paralysed person to be 'reanimated' offers neuroscience insights
Researchers at Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York have recently published in Nature an article where they describe successful results of the technology which sends signals from brain of paralysed person directly to his muscles. A volunteer patient Ian Buckhart paralised six years ago after accident when he broke his neck had a microchip implanted in his brain.Technology that bypass spinal cord allowed him to regain partial control over his left arm and he is even able to make isolated finger movements to the point of playing guitar player simulator. Such neural bypass technology has never been so successful, previously it has been tested on animals only, the technology sends decoded signals from the brain to computer which then after applying learning algorithms translates signals into electric messages and sends it through cable to flexible sleeve that stimulates muscles.
2) New 'e-skin' tech turns your body into a walking display
The recent paper in Friday’s edition of Journal Science Advances contain report from Japanese scientists on the new technology that could help to create electronic skin display. The technology is a ultra-thin and ultra-flexible film less than micrometers thick. Such a film is much more useful than glass and plastics that similar wearable devices use today. It is also impervious to air and moisture a quality extending it’s lifetime from few hours to several days.
The most obvious application of electronic skin display technology is health metrics and educational supplement, but as Professor Takao Someya of University of Tokio who had led the project has said, displays can add whole new dimention of how we communicate with each other.
3) Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner launch $100m star voyage
Last week Yury Milner a Silicon Valley philanthropist and Stewen Hawking a world-known physicist and cosmologist have announced Breakthrough Starshot. A third Breakthrough initiative that will launch a feather-weight robot spacecraft to our nearest star Alpha Centaury was announced on 55th anniversary of the first orbit of the planet by cosmonaut Yury Gagarin, after whom Milner was named.
The spacecraft is a microchip with thin fabric that will use it as a sail. Sail will be accelerated by laser-powered light beam and since it will gain momentum in space with no friction it will reach the speed of sixty thousands kilometers per second. The project thus could lead to advances in laser technology and power generation at relatively low-costs, nanotechnologies where fabrics with unique properties can be made to order, and integrated curcuit computer chips technology.
4) World's first surgery streamed in virtual reality live from London
On 14th of April, 2016, the first live broadcast of surgery through virtual reality has taken place in London. Cancer surgeon at the Royal London Hospital a pioneer of VR surgery, doctor Shafi Akhmed performed an operation on a patient with a colon cancer and streamed it to thousands of medical students watching on VR headsets.
The operation was filmed on 360 degrees cameras with multiple lenses. This has allowed viewers to be able to zoom in on Dr Ahmed's movements and to walk around the theatre to see the operation from different angles, even to help surgeon during the operation. As doctor Akhmed has said, virtual reality and augmented reality technology could revolutionize surgical education and training, particularly in developed countries that don’t have resources and facilities.
5) Robots could get 'touchy' with self-powered smart skin
The recent article by a group of scientists from Peking University, Beijing published in “ASC Nano” journal, has revealed a new low cost method to create artificial smart synthetic skin. New method is able to drastically simplify the system of such smart skin as it needs no external power source and uses much less quantity of electrodes, at the same time being no less sensitive. The technology of artificial sensorics such as smart skin presents unprecedented opportunities for artificial intelligence, because it endows robots and prosthetics with a human-like sense of touch.
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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