Greenflame
Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture, photography and faith from the Aotearoa New Zealand
Category: Cyborg
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Couple of things of interest this week. Firstly, Four Door Films have released the rough cut of their 90 minute documentary file “Building Gods” on Google Video. (See Building Gods Rough Cut – Google Video). Haven’t looked at it beyond the first few minutes but it looks like an interesting survey of perspectives on transhumanism.…
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Brief article at Science & Theology News – A cyborg explores what it means to be human looking at whether things like cochlear implants threaten humanness and personhood. Includes comments from Michael Chorost (see Greenflame: Hi, I’m Bionic) and Anne Foerst (Greenflame: God In The Machine: What Robots Teach Us About Humanity And God).
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Radio documentary from Radio Netherlands that was broadcast in the “Windows on the World” slot on National Radio last night. There’s a Real Audio stream on the following page RNW: Man and machine, part 1. Here’s the blurb from that page, From the myth of Pygmalion down to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, to films such as…
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The latest issue of Dialag, a Lutheran theological journal, has a collection of articles on technology and the human being in it’s latest issue. And that issue is now their current sample issue – it wasn’t a week or two back when I was getting ready to interloan it – with PDFs of the articles…
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Fitting right into today’s writing efforts is this older (Jan 2005!) article about Markus Giesler who works in the area of high-tech consumer research. The article picks up on some of the themes from my own research, albeit from a business perspective. “IPod and user form a cybernetic unit,” said Giesler. “We’re always talking about…
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Clothes that clean themselves, help reduce allergic reactions and skin conditions, and are wired for the digital life style may be closer than we think. See Wired News: Cyborg Suits Strut the Catwalk.
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Was writing up a section on immersion as one of the distinctive approaches to VR (one of the seven that Michael Heim identifies) and came across these articles. Love the VirtuaSphere (but not sure if I could carry off the Lycra body suit). The VR small and taste articles are also interesting but I think…
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Great article on one man’s quest to hear music again through his cochlear implant. I’d definitely agree that going beyond mere utility into extra research to improve the overall quality of life is worth it. I can’t imagine a world without music myself. See Wired 13.11: My Bionic Quest for Boléro.
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Another recent article on introducing technologies, formerly associated with therapeutic, to assist the unimpaired in new ways. Another example of intentional cyborgism. See Wired News: Hearing Aids for the Unimpaired. HearWear -Â The Future of Hearing, a new exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, shows off trendy deaf-tech prototypes like gadgets that can filter…
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Article on the use of robots for the care of the elderly in Japan. One of the systems talked about here, the Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL), is effectively an exoskeleton that augments the person’s muscle strength. In effect it creates another form of cyborg, not dissimilar to those seen in the cinema, video games and…