Paralyzed Man Takes A Walk In Virtual World
Ok, so I love reading about these kinds of things that make science fiction into science fact over time. I know I’ve had other stories about similar things, but I found yet another one that I thought god to share with you.
So this guy in Japan that has been hit with a horrible lot and has been paralyzed got hooked up, pun intended, with a device that reads his brainwaves and allows for him to manipulate data in a computer. Mainly just the data streams that are used for input and such, but still data. He merely thought about walking and was able to make an avatar in Second Life walk around the virtual world. This is someone who has barely been able to bend his fingers for 30 years now and he can virtually walk.
Really cool stuff when you look at it. Also could be a bit scary if you think about it too. But it would be another way to give some of the functions of a normal life back to someone who has lost them. Like say for instance, allowing them to use this device to type out messages and communicate on the interwebs like everyone else as well as play video games.
There is also mention of allowing for walks about virtual malls to do online shopping. Not too sure how cool that would be. You know, if they can manipulate the input by brain, why would they want to spend time strolling around a virtual mall when they can just let their brain do the clicking instead, while wheeling around a physical mall. Just my thoughts.