[Cyborg] various cyborg ideas from Daemon and Freedom(TM)

travis+ml-cyborg at subspacefield.org travis+ml-cyborg at subspacefield.org
Mon Jun 6 20:06:16 UTC 2011


On Thu, Nov 04, 2010 at 09:05:13AM -0700, travis+ml-cyborg at subspacefield.org wrote:
> Haptic vest - Also called "the third eye", this vest stimulates the skin,
> making it a giant input device.  By rendering your surroundings as perceived
> via e.g. IR, ultrasonics or RADAR, you can effectively see in the dark, or
> when blinded.  The characters in the stories use them to receive messages
> from robots and alerts from newsfeeds.

Talked to a guy at Noisebridge 5MoF who worked for a local eye
institute (Something-Ketteridge eye institute?), helping the blind.
He said that "your torso is not a retina" - there's far fewer nerves,
and your "two point discrimination" is very low on, say, your back.
Further, electrical stimulation can be painful - the pain threshhold
is quite close to your ability to sense it at all.  Possibly some
nanomaterial or piezo matrix fabrics would be useful (a fabric with
individually addressable piezo units).

> Heads Up Display - the primary output device for Darknet operatives.
> Often seen as eyeglasses.

See the recent post about Vuzix STAR 1200:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/06/04/images-of-the-vuzix-star-1200-augmented-reality-glasses/

> Bone Conduction Speakers - so you can hear (the computer, or your teammates)
> even in firefights.

Throat mic for cell phones:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/cellphone/c8e1/

If you're thinking of doing radio in high-noise or windy environments,
then a standard mic is probably not a good idea.

This is even better:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bone_conduction

You can find some online, that are transducers, so they output and
input, and can be used by divers (are waterproof).

A relative has some bluetooth hearing aids (a "streamer") - they are
pretty hard to notice but they cost a pretty penny - perhaps $2-3k for
a set.  So this kind of technology doesn't come cheap.  They have
obvious applications in certain kinds of work, though the usual
technique uses induction loops around the neck and is much cheaper.

Similarly, this technology can detect you speaking things even when
you aren't aware of it:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Subvocalization

For hands-free operation, you'll want a system with voice activation:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Voice-operated_switch

This may be very valuable in emergency situations where both hands are
full.  You might even want some kind of protection against very loud,
sudden noises so that you don't blast the listener's ears off.

A simple webcam CCD can also detect NIR, simply by taking lens off.
The low-light cameras are VERY good at this.  FIR requires a special
array of thermistors, it's kinda tricky... it's too bad we can't just
change the frequency of photons by passing them through some
nanomaterial, then we could use multi-lens (or lens arrays) to get
multispectral, or hyperspectral images.

There is at least one iphone app that uses the camera and translates
certain colors into "false color" in real-time for colorblind people,
so that they can distinguish, say, red and green (or whatever).  It
won't be too long before they're wearing augmented-reality glasses and
don't have this disadvantage at all, most of the time.
-- 
http://www.subspacefield.org/~travis/ | 0800... in the morning, sir?
You - are my test pilots.  You're gonna kiss the sun, and taste the m-f rainbow!
If you are a spammer, please email john at subspacefield.org to get blacklisted.
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