The US Military Is Developing A 'Brain Chip' That Will Plug Humans Directly Into Computers
Remember how Neo inserts a probe into the base of his skull to enter The Matrix? That could soon become a reality.
The US military is funding a $65 million program to develop a sort of ‘brain chip’ that could allow humans to plug directly into computers.
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) -- which is like the DRDO of the US -- is claiming that this new matrix-style technology would not only allow for the creation of ‘super soldiers’ but also enable doctors to help blind people see and paralysed people walk again.
For its Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program, DARPA has already selected five US universities who'll jointly work on the project for the US Military -- Brown University, Columbia University, The Seeing and Hearing Foundation, the John B. Pierce Laboratory, Paradromics Inc and the University of California, Berkeley will all receive a combined grant of US $65 million to develop different functions for this 'brain chip'.
Four of the teams selected will focus on creating vision interfaces and two will focus on creating and demonstrating working systems on aspects of hearing and speech.
It must be stressed that the research being undertaken to realize the potential of NESD will help advance scientists' understanding of the neural aspects of vision, hearing, and speech that they haven't uncovered so far, and could eventually lead to radical new ways of permanently curing people suffering from sensory defects.
'The NESD program looks ahead to a future in which advanced neural devices offer improved fidelity, resolution, and precision sensory interface for therapeutic applications,’ said Phillip Alvelda, the founding NESD Program Manager, according to The Daily Mail.
The program’s first year will focus on making breakthroughs in hardware, software, and neuroscience, and testing them in animals and cells. Phase II will accelerate basic studies, along with focusing in miniaturization and integration of the neural technology, with regulatory approval for human safety testing.
DARPA's previously stated goal is to achieve this neural communications link in a biocompatible device (a microchip, for instance) which is no larger than one cubic centimeter in size. That's one helluva task!