Saturday, April 05, 2014

TED Talks

there are many helpful and interesting TED talks. The other day I posted a link to a conversation with Edward Snowden on Facebook, and after I watched that broadcast I followed a link to a talk about bionics. Now if you grew up in the 70's you will remember The Six Million Dollar Man and the spin-off The Bionic Woman. I believe there was also a bionic dog somewhere in the storyline too, but maybe I'm just dreaming!

Whilst the programming became more and more ridiculous, the early concept, loosely based on the novel Cyborg, was intriguing and seemingly far-fetched and futuristic at the time. But here we are 40 years on and we now actually do have some amazing technology that has incredible potential for prosthetics.

Interestingly, in the Ted talk, alongside the amazing bionic legs described is a very challenging idea. Put simply, it's that technology is what is broken not the individuals with challenges. We are, or so it seems, edging ever closer to the reality of those famous opening lines form 1973, "We have the technology, we can rebuild him..."


No comments: