- He's just an ordinary fellow, but even as he passes by
you can sense the magic. He opens the door without touching it, switches
on the lights without a gesture and apparently talks to someone invisible
to us ordinary mortals.
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- But it's nothing supernatural. Professor Kevin Warwick
is very much a normal human being. What sets him apart, though, is a microchip
implanted in his arm that allows him to control his surroundings without
physical interaction.
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- Warwick, director of cybernetics at Britain's University
of Reading, has transformed science fiction into reality. As far back as
1998, he shocked the ivory towers of academia with Cyborg 1, which had
a capsule-embedded microprocessor no bigger than the tiny pearl he himself
has had implanted in his arm for nine days. It enables him to interact
directly with his office.
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- Every time he passes through the building's entryway,
the door opens and lights pop on automatically.
-
- The "magic" amounts to the implanted chip,
which communicates via radio waves with a network of antennae throughout
the building. As he walks in, his computer informs him about his e-mail
messages and then reads them aloud.
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- Warwick hopes his innovations will eventually spawn a
communications revolution. To that end, more than a hundred guests yesterday
got a first-hand look at the "cyborg man" who had flown to Thailand
to give a lecture entitled "Will it be intelligent robots or cyborgs
in the future?"
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- The professor demonstrated several experiments in robotic
research and noted that his cyborg project, inaugurated in 1998, took another
four years to reach its current phase. Last March, the second phase began
in earnest.
-
- The first phase was about the interaction between humans
and computers, but the current project endeavours to genuinely link machines
with the human nervous system.
-
- The chip implanted in his wrist is connected to nerve
fibres by a tiny cable. It can send signals back and forth between his
nervous system and the computer through a radio transmitter-receiver worn
on his forearm.
-
- The linkage enables him to control his environment: a
shift of his hand can control the lights, a coffee maker and even an electronic
wheelchair.
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- Warwick has also tested a trans-Atlantic robotic arm.
By linking through the Internet, he was able to control the robotic arm
in Britain simply by moving his hand in New York.
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- Warwick has implanted a chip in his wife Irena's arm
in a bid to determine how movement, thoughts or emotions might be transmitted
from one person to the other via the Internet.
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- When either he or his wife felt emotional distress or
excitement they simultaneously experienced the same sensation, he said.
Warwick believes this research could lead to advances in allowing people
to share thoughts and know each other's emotions and feelings.
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- People in the future may be able to share thoughts and
understand each other even though they use different languages, live in
different regions and follow different cultures, he said.
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