Bypass the body, control a machine with your thoughts

It is days like these and when I mean days, I mean days that I watch TED talks, where I think we live in the twilight zone. In one of my classes we briefly talked about brain control, a new kind of communication. After watching Miguel Nicolelis’s TED talk, I am convinced that something that was considered sci-fi before is now nonfiction.

In Nicolelis’s presentation, he talks about his experiments with a monkey that learns to control a robot arm by using its thoughts. Also another experiment shows how the monkey is successful by using its thoughts to control a monkey avatar in Japan while the monkey’s body itself is in the US!

Before jumping to the implications of these experiments, I will let you finish your shock moment. Yes, we will be able to use our brains to directly control machines.

Brain control and the research behind it will help the once paralyzed people to be liberated, restoring motor functions. A different kind of mobility will be available for quadriplegic people but it does not stop there. What else can you think of that the power of brain control will affect? A new form of communication will bring new meanings to everything.

“Allowing the brain to send motor commands to move the avatar and the feedback that comes back from the avatar is being processed directly by the brain without interference of the skin,” says Nicolelis. He explains about one of the experiments how the monkey is able to move the avatar without moving his physical body. “Liberating the brain,” says Nicolelis.

In another experiment, the monkey is in the US and is able to move an autonomous robot, six times the monkey’s actual size, that is in Japan just by its cortical activity. This blows my mind. I definitely think everyone should watch this astonishing TED video.

TedMed Miguel Nicolelis: A monkey that controls a robot with its thoughts. No, really. [Web]. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/miguel_nicolelis_a_monkey_that_controls_a_robot_with_its_thoughts_no_really.html 

Communication after death?

Some things just refuse to die…like those zombies in movies that take several bullets to the chest but it does not seem to stop them from chasing you. Now, would you want your digital persona to be like one of those zombies?

Did you know that there are online services available that help you decide what happens to your online profiles and social media accounts after you die? Who knew. We spend countless hours posting, sharing, updating until we die, do we really want that to continue AFTER we die as well?

In Adam Ostrow’s TEDtalk: After your final status update, he mentions, “[with new technology]…it is going to become possible to analyze an entire life’s worth of content.” Personally, I find it awkward to be forced to think about someone’s death all the time if I saw continual posts from them after their death every time I scroll through my news feed.

Robots that can interact like humans based on the content that we have created over our lifetimes? Interactive life-like holograms of yourself after death? Does anyone else think this is a bit creepy? Is it necessary? I think lives, even digital ones, need an expiration date…preferably the same date as your physical life.

Ostrow asks us to reflect on the reality of our digital personas living on and what it means for a definition of life and everything that comes after it. Our Facebook generation, unlike the generations that come before, will have access to some new technology that needs to be reflected upon. Do we embrace this new technology or not? Does it fit in with our religious views? How will it affect the people who are closest to us? Will it provide a false reality to our friends and families and prolong their mourning? There are many things to consider other than ourselves before deciding to let our digital persona live on.  

Tedtalks Adam Ostrow: After your final status update [Web]. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/adam_ostrow_after_your_final_status_update.html  

4D technology in entertainment needs some patience

 

“An attempt at visualizing the Fourth Dimension: Take a point, stretch it into a line, curl it into a circle, twist it into a sphere, and punch through the sphere.” –Albert Einstein

Einstein’s quote explains how we can visualize the fourth dimension geometrically, but when it comes to 4D digital media technology, it is much easier to experience it than explain it. Feeling wind blow through your hair, vibrations from your chair, drops of water on your skin, the smell of gunpowder…these are all possible effects that you might experience depending on what 4D movie that you are seeing. The effects are synchronized with the movie so your senses are stimulated to immerse you.

Adding a fourth dimension in entertainment includes anything from effects that we can physically feel and smell, to strobe lights which excite our senses. 4D technology is most often used in medical imaging devices and has not been popular among the masses when it comes to cinema entertainment.

One of the reasons for this may be that it is pretty darn expensive to build a theater that is capable of offering the 4D experience. The only 4D movie experience I have had was at the Shedd Aquarium. According to Wikipedia, 4D films are most often presented in custom-built theatres at special venues (e.g. Lego 4D Cinema) and there are “…some movie theaters have the ability to present 4D versions of wide-release 3D films.”

Although 4D technology is widely used in the medical field, it probably will not be as widely used in the entertainment industry for a pretty long while. The hype of 3D technology in advertising is only just the beginning, as advertisers realize the opportunities that will make their brands stand out. We have not even reached the peak of consumption of 3D technology in entertainment and advertising yet. 4D will have to wait a little while.

4d film. In (2013). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4D_film

Quotationsbook. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://quotationsbook.com/quote/40865/

Augmented reality: a new way to interact with the world

            Augmented reality “…allows you to be able to display information in a way that was never before possible” mentions Matt Mills, a technologist who comes from Aurasma and was featured in TEDGlobal 2012.  In his presentation, Mills presents a new augmented reality tool, Aurasma, that will change the way we interact with the world. 

            My mind has been going crazy, thinking of all the possibilities of how I will begin to use this new technology in my own life. But zooming out and looking at even a bigger picture, what great things we can do outside of our social lives and networks; to expand and reach people outside of our networks and to connect and help them. Augmented reality technology and Aurasma now make it a fun, creative, and most importantly, convenient way to interact with your world.

“This is the next step on from simply browsing the internet because now the digital content we discover, create and share can be woven seamlessly in to the world around us,” says Mills. New digital technology, like augmented reality, calls upon the creative side of all of us to share with each other new and exciting ideas and ways to interact with the world.

            In my digital advertising blog (http://elcinozbay2.blogspot.com/), one of my blog postings was about brands advertising in Super Bowl 2013 and how they are using remediation. I wrote about how a lot of brands nowadays are using hashtags and URLs, a popular way to increase interactivity, breaking through the limits that traditional media present. A television or print ad becomes the medium instead of the content. I ended the post with a question, wondering what the next trend would be; or if hashtags and URLs will still stay popular for a while. I am predicting that advertisers who compete for the digital era audience attention and want to be successful, they should already be thinking of ways to utilize this new technology in future ads.  

Tedtalks Matt Mills: Image recognition that triggers augmented reality [Web]. (2012). Retrieved from
http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_mills_image_recognition_that_triggers_augmented_reality.html