Our Technological Future - Mixed Bag #12

First off, something that struck me as really special.

I was just surfing around and stumbled upon a video that demonstrated blind people receiving electrical signals to their tongues, which allowed them to see.

Cameras are used as replacements for their eyes and electrical signals are sent to their tongues. Eventually, or so the video claims, the blind person will start processing this input with their visual cortex.

This means they would actually see, just like you and me.

I looked up an article to go with the video. The article I found is from 2003 so it's already pretty old stuff. The technology is called BrainPort.

[update]I also found a newer article. The video shows the technology in its current state, not the 2003-state.[/update]

BrainGate technology pulled off something similar. BrainGate is responsible for allowing Mathew Nagel to move a mousecursor with his thoughts.


Also in this mixed bag, two lightly digestable, semi-scientific writings:

8 technologies to save the world

The scariest ideas in science


And then there's the rest of last week's breakthroughs:

Meet the world's first 45nm transistors (CPU's are getting so fast these days that it's just not funny anymore)

Scientists build memory chip as small as blood cell

Scientists restore gene to shrink tumors in mice

Biology's next revolution

Test printing a two story house

3D display screens videogaming needs

Liquid metal (no, not the Terminator)