Would there be a robot rebellion inside a robot rebellion?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Me too. Not like full cyberpunk Shadowrun style but even an embedded ocular cam would be just super!

Nigel has one of those.  In her stomach.

Shhhh don't tell them everything.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Thanks for the link Nigel, about to read it now, then the links from Faust brought on by the :nonsarcasticslowclap:

never heard the term embedded electronics before, but I like it better than bionics.
I like even more that the blind see and the lame may yet walk. I owe much in my life to the good Science.

FWIW, the eye and the camera also bear very little technical similarity, and in a reversal of the brain analogy, while eyes are really complicated, they're also kinda shitty. Having camera eyes would be awesome.

I want robot stuff like that.  I would be full of useful things.

Me too. Not like full cyberpunk Shadowrun style but even an embedded ocular cam would be just super!

Embedded electronics actually refers to low power, low level electronics, often used in in passive ways that people dont have to know they are interacting with them to interact with them.

There's no cool name for the Transhumanist stuff... medical devices, assisted living and as you said, bionics.

Tapping into nerves and understanding how it communicates sensory information is tricky, but its coming along with controlling arm/leg prostheses really well, the latest versions having even rudimentary feedback simulating skin.

Even just a bit of localized pressure sensitivity on a gripper would be awesome.

Think I saw a recent vid of a fellow that was double arm amputated using prosthesis quite well. I'm stoked about it!

I misunderstood the embedded bit, sorry. I've done a lot of work in electronic hand assembly. Used to have a c3 cert for aircraft, medical, and um.. other. Not terribly savvy on the engineering but I quite enjoy the craft of it and can follow on technical stuff pretty well. It messes with me a bit to think of how assembly might be handled for the future's devices. It's difficult enough to work lead free solder with a good flux, but some devices don't even allow that. Or didn't like 10 years ago.

I've never had to solder anything like that, and I cant imagine how delicate those would be to work with. Precision grip does seem to be limited with the lack of pressure sensitivity, but considering the leaps its only a matter of time.

There's a lot of 'you want me to do WHAT now fool?' When an assembler gets a board that must have just looked great on paper but now has to be reworked due to process failure. Ground planes in particular are obnoxious to rework after the oven as they cause considerable heat sink, but there are ways.

Mostly it's a whole lot of fine or temp sensitive components that can't go through the oven or fine surface mount IC work. That is, for the fine outfit I learned from.

Later in life I worked for a gritty laughing stock of an electronic manufacturer and discovered what it's like to do hand solder and heat gun work AT SPEED because the dinosaur machines that do the placement and oven profiling malfunction constantly and the operators perhaps more so. This left the 'Inspector' to do vast amounts of rework. I burned out. Might get back into it one day, but as you said it's delicate work and I'm out of practice.

That we're even getting meaningful feedback to the brain from any electronic devices is a revolution. Everything else is refinement. Like you said we went from black and white to 640x480 pretty quick!

[Doktor Howl]

And it's worth noting that my great grandmother was old enough to read about Kitty Hawk and lived to see the space shuttle land.

One lifetime, from the birth of heavier than air flight to moon landings to interplanetary probes to reusable spacecraft.

Of course, she had to watch two world wars and a couple of nasty bombs along the way.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And it's worth noting that my great grandmother was old enough to read about Kitty Hawk and lived to see the space shuttle land.

One lifetime, from the birth of heavier than air flight to moon landings to interplanetary probes to reusable spacecraft.

Of course, she had to watch two world wars and a couple of nasty bombs along the way.

Fuck, we're only about half a human life-span old, but in the time we've been alive, computers have gone from house-sized to pocket-sized (and thousands of times more powerful), we have seen the introduction and explosion of a global information network, the introduction of most of the vaccines that currently make survival into adulthood not only more probable but generally assumable for  those who have access to them (including most of those who have access and choose not to use it), the indexing of the human genome, the dawn of the new disciplines of epigenetics and neuroscience, and the first-ever global decline of poverty and violence.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And that's just the shit that I can think of off the top of my head.

[Doktor Howl]

And that's just the shit that I can think of off the top of my head.

Outpatient heart surgery.  Routine eye surgery.  E BOOKS.

Gays not only not being killed, but allowed to openly marry.  That's not tech, but I don't care.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And that's just the shit that I can think of off the top of my head.

Outpatient heart surgery.  Routine eye surgery.  E BOOKS.

Gays not only not being killed, but allowed to openly marry.  That's not tech, but I don't care.

It totally is tech, in the sense that it is utilizing an idea to help us foster human survival, and human thriving.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Not to be overly reductionist, but I do think that ideas are technology, especially when you strip the idea of technology down to the concept of "the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes".

[The Wizard Joseph]

Ideas are tech, I'd agree to that. Constructs of ideas can be an engine of sorts for good or ill just like a machine program.

And just think of all we still 'don't know we don't know'. That's what hits me hardest. We have found so much so fast and yet whole disciplines could be waiting after some future scientific discovery or revolutionary social change.

Sometimes I look down and wonder if Icarus just panicked and jumped too soon.
I should reread that myth.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And just think of all we still 'don't know we don't know'. That's what hits me hardest. We have found so much so fast and yet whole disciplines could be waiting after some future scientific discovery or revolutionary social change.

That is exactly what I love most about science. Every single thing we figure out generates far wider questions.

[Faust]

http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0722/716350-bionic-eye/

A partially sighted British pensioner has had his central vision partially restored for the first time in nearly a decade after he received a "bionic eye".

The 80-year-old man is the world's first patient with advanced dry age related macular degeneration or AMD to undergo the procedure.

AMD is the most common cause of sight loss in the developed world with between 20 and 25 million sufferers worldwide.

Manchester man Ray Flynn's central vision has been deteriorating for the last eight years as a result of untreatable AMD, leaving him with just peripheral vision and affecting his quality of life.

Last month he received a retinal implant during a four-hour operation.

It converts video images captured by a miniature camera in his glasses into a series of electrical impulses transmitted wirelessly to electrodes on the surface of the retina.

The pulses stimulate the retina's remaining cells resulting in the corresponding perception of patterns of light in the brain, which the patient learns to interpret in order to regain some visual function.

Since his system was turned on three weeks ago, Mr Flynn can now make out the outline of people and objects, even with his eyes closed.

130 patients worldwide with the rare disease retinitis pigmentosa have already successfully used the bionic implant.

However, this is the first time a patient with peripheral vision has received one, making it the first known case of a human having combined natural and artificial sight.

So it's up to 130 of these out in the wild now. The design has already come down in size, offloading the processing to the side pack.

While these are still in a blurry state data gathered from these people will allow them to make further improvements as they learn more about how to interface with the optic nerve.

The interesting thing highlighted is that he doesn't need his eyes open for this and the portability of the camera: obviously its easier to get knocked off his head, hence the bulky safety goggles which would be a risk if blind patients were to drop them in busy or dangerous areas after becoming accustomed to using them, but with the option of being able to position these he could literally have eyes in the back of his head.

The nature of the camera as a standard ccd/cmos camera means that shit can be networked. He could potentially have cameras around his house to see each room. Or a strip joint on the far side of the planet... or a drone

Either way, its a technology that really impresses me. It may not be applicable everywhere (if the persons optic nerves are damaged, they would be hard to interface with), but we have the potential now to minimise cases of blindness (at least in the first world nations).