This is probably MUCH more impressive/symbolic to me since I just got finished watching the new RoboCop movie, but it’s cool, nonetheless. The FDA has recently approved a mind-controlled robotic arm created by the inventor of the Segway, called the Deka Arm.
I don’t pretend to know much about the current state (or history of) prosthetics. From what I gather, we’re still very much in the early days – while legs/feet are much more functional, arms and hands seem to be more challenging for science and medicine, due to the amount of precision that ‘home-grown’ ones have accustomed us to. I’m also quite impressed with the design of this new ‘Deka Arm’ prosthetic – it looks much more like a real arm/hand than most prosthetics that I’ve seen in my life.
This topic has been breached in a few movies over the years, but it will be interesting to see how the public reacts to people with more lifelike prosthetics and other ‘cyborg’ type advances in science and medicine. I’m also interested in how something like the Deka Arm, which is more medically *necessary* will be accepted versus something like Google Glass, which is more of a voluntary thing.
Ricky Cadden 