Cloud Combat: Thinking Machines in Future Wars

Lifting a coffee cup is a routine gesture for most, but now-famous stroke victim Cathy Hutchison does so through a series of wires connected directly to her motor cortex. A bionic arm does the job of her dead nerves. Similar prosthetic research has rerouted impulses from the local nervous system, notably at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. A team from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University has conducted motor-cortex bionic limb tests with monkeys. Now BrainGate researchers and testing pioneers have broken the wall between computers and human consciousness.