Here, it is reported that scientists have successfully impregnated a nanowire into the lipid bilayer of a cell. You probably didn't hear about it on the local news, but this is big. Remember TAE's Law of Bionics: All you need is drivers.
TAE believes the great revolution in human-machine interfaces will come down not to some sort of innovative and breakthrough technology, but rather the smart people who come up with a way to code 1's and 0's into the language of the brain. Think of it like this: your brain is the computer box sitting next to you. When you plug your mouse into the computer, the computer needs a driver file to translate the data from the mouse into data that the computer can use. Lacking drivers, or if the wrong drivers are installed, and the mouse won't work, or will work incorrectly. Get a different mouse, and you better get new drivers.
The same holds true, I believe, for connecting machines to the brain. Machines work in discrete packets of digital information. Your central nervous system, however, does not. Nerves send pulses in different frequencies, different amplitudes, and different combinations in order to convey complex information to the brain.
The group of individuals who can develop a method to send machine-derived information to the brain via nerves will be very rich indeed. Imagine a USB port on your arm. Imagine being able to plug into your computer directly, and hear music directly in your brain. "Yeah right" you laugh.
But it's basically completely plausible. Right now, you receive audio information from your ears. The waves of sound cause little hairs to vibrate, which excites nerves. These nerves then carry the information to the brain, which "hears" the sounds. Why not send the same information from a different set of nerves? Why not send it through a USB port on your arm? Your brain, receiving the sound data, would assume it is hearing music, regardless of the source. You could potentially listen to music at any volume through your USB implant, as the actual environment would be completely silent, and your ears would not be harmed.
Or imagine if you could see behind you. Right now your eyes are on the front of your head, receiving photons, and translating them into nerve pulses that travel through your optic nerves into your brain. Why not send that data from an external device through a USB implant and get visual data that way? Really, you could "watch" anything, anytime. Augmented Reality would take on a whole new meaning if instead of overlaying an image in front of your eyes and then receiving that information through your eyes...instead you sent the AR information directly to the brain.
I know this sounds fanciful and ridiculous, but it brings us full round to the headline at the beginning of the post. If scientists can develop a method to create nerve-wire connections (that translate data) without causing cell death...we're a huge leap closer to having human-machine interfaces.
Now all we need is the drivers.
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