Awesome.   B"H   This offers such promise, and I am greatly encouraged.  But, like all tools, care is necessary.  A knife be used by a murderer to torture and kill people.  But sharpened and used as a scapel, in the hands of a DOC, that same knife can help heal the wounded, ill, diseased, and damaged, even save lives. And this new tech seems to hold such promise to help so many people!  Dr Stephen Hawking, oh to see what he might have done with this technology!  A wonderful promise of a better future for so many people. 

Its kinda like this. The computer can't 'read' your thoughts...no. What it does is interpret the electrical activity associated with certain brain functions, i.e. thought processes and compares them with known variables programmed into it. There are approximately 6 1/2 billion people on the planet and no two are alike. These are the kind of variables the computer must deal with. Each one of the variables, an individual, has how many neurons in his/her brain? Trillions perhaps. There's a long road ahead.

Which was inspired by the MiG25 Foxbat which had the west panicking as it was assumed to be an air superiority fighter when it was infact an Interceptor design to counter the SR71 and XB70 'threats'.

Wee bit OT...

I would like to see it advanced as DrJBHL said but I can't help thinking what certain others might try to do with it. Always there is this question, which really makes me sick, can it used as a weapon? I wonder who might ask that.

I'd bet on health care and military... follow the money. However, military usage might not be nefarious. It might just enable people to multitask in noisy environments.

I'm not speaking about unethical usage, still, it might prevent torture as an interrogation technique. For example, the ticking bomb scenario (an imminent attack). Of course, that could be at anytime, so it would inevitably be used as an excuse to use such a device.

However, it would be way in the future that any such undertaking could occur because one would still have to translate all thoughts, and what if the person simply doesn't think about it? As the device and software are at present, they require volition as well as training (I believe) to use.

As for the law, the 5th Amendment would still hold true for those it applies to so self incrimination wouldn't really become an issue, nor anything arising from such an interrogation technique (fruit of the poisoned tree), as well as 4th Amendment illegal search and seizure issues.

The really sticky part would be usage in the workplace: "You wish to apply for a job? Just put this on your head while we talk." That type of usage would have to be made strictly illegal.

I still wish only to look at the brighter side - the way such a device could change so many lives for the better. 

It is stories like this that makes me wonder if we will be the skinless mutants of "Beneath the Planet of The Apes" or the Buck Rogers of the future.  It is a race to see which develops first, rockets or the interfaces!  But both at the same time will be dangerous if we are not careful (the Forbidden Planet).

I'd love to see this type of technology used for people who don't have the use of their limbs, or suffer the nightmare-fuel "locked in" syndrome.

As for defence, I like sleeping at night know the boys and girls keeping me safe have the best tools of the trade at their disposal.  However, there is a line there, as whatever they have to defend me can be used to keep me quiet should the situation arise.  Mind controlled death machines crosses that line.

I'm very happy this technology is being developed, and may help many people increase their access to the world around them.  I still can't help but contiinuing imagining what Dr Hawkins would have done had he had accesss to this new technology.  How many others, who have been 'trapped' in their body's mal-functioning semi-cage will now have so much more freedom.  And the benefits of the freedom will be just for the user - as some will make great contributions for the benefit of us all.   Whats not to like?

Hopefully, hopefully soon (May G-d hear my prayer).

Too, too many suffer and the waste... of resources, people, lives... just brings tears.

We are mechanical  - no. Machines work by ΔT - temperature differences. We do not. We work around a fairly constant temperature. Our energy is not derived from 'oxidation' like a gas engine. We use enzymes.

In your version of reality.

No... trying to help disabled people.

Not at all.

Only in one model (diamonds and other "commodities") they do not represent the entire economic system.

The monetary system doesn't depend only on scarcity... some items do, but not all. The economic system didn't stop functioning when we had budget surpluses. But beyond that, you should read "The Future of Money" by Bernard Lietaer - a small quote:

"Your money's value is determined by a global casino of unprecedented proportions: $2 trillion are traded per day in foreign exchange markets, 100 times more than the trading volume of all the stockmarkets of the world combined. Only 2% of these foreign exchange transactions relate to the "real" economy reflecting movements of real goods and services in the world, and 98% are purely speculative"

There isn't just one kind of money, aeligos. There are many as well as alternative currencies...

Not machines.  But mechanical -- mechanical in the sense of physical forces; explained by physics, essentially, as a car can be explained by using physics.  Both car and human are mechanical, but one is a machine, the other a human.

Let's try to think outside the box; the world is not as black and white as our PhD academe juzu wizards would have us believe.

Oxidation reactions do occur in living organisms, but our (cellular) energy, since you mentioned it, is derived from de/phosphorylation reactions by use of the catalyst (ATP).  What is an enzyme if it isn't a catalyst?  A catalyst widely used by life.  Nanobots are currently being perfected so as to replace/enhance the enzymatic reactions of the human musculoskeletal system, to preserve/enhance the cerebral network for memory preservation, remote viewing and to artificially enhance the intelligence of the host.

Strange ways, here we come.

Ignorance is bliss?

We can help disabled people by preventing disabilities in the first place.  Spinal regeneration, cancer prevention (instead of causation), and limb regeneration, for example, is only unheard of today because the medical industry (and our economy now that I think of it) would suffer dearly.

All those trillions of dollars would go to waste (or better stated, would not be created) because of all the damn healthy people. 

If the authorities stated that legal money can be produced from the harvesting of squirrel kidneys, blended with 1.8grams of pigeon-fertilized black soil, and rolled out to a sheet no higher than 0.02 cm thick, and baked for 13.5 minutes at 125F, would you believe them?

I'm guessing you would, Jman.

GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) is for a reason, and its influence is global; its authority unwavering.

The City of London does not belong to the Queen of the UK, nor to the people or its parliament.  It belongs to the British Crown, which possesses the financial district of London and exists completely independent of other parliaments and monarchs of the world, which it controls through the means of corporate commercial transaction, debt and inflation.

The City of London is therefore the financial capital of the world, so mention any other world currency, or create your own with squirrel innards, and it will still abide by the Crown's authority.  So make haste and gather your squirrel hunting gear because if you snooze, you will lose.

Time is money -- literally!

-.-

Doc and A...  you both want things to be better for people, even as you both seem to differ on the 'hows' and 'werefors.'   I am glad there are people who are genuninely concerned about our welfare, our future as a people, as a species, and as a biosphere/planet. 

I came across this related PC/tech that might also help people with danaged limbs, etc.

http://www.innovationnewsdaily.com/mit-transform-world-tech-1920/8 

Kinect (won't let me put two different vids in... even though urls are different, same vid displays).