The Future This Week: CRISPR, Cryonics, and the Transhumanist Party
The Future This Week, Serious Wonder straps on its robotic legs in search of this week’s headlines of the future, from bionic eyes to virtual reality (VR) haptic suits. This week is all about the human biological substrate, its limitations, and what scientists and engineers are doing to ensure a future where advanced technologies help humans overcome, and ultimately transcend, those biological limitations in the coming years.
Whether we’re using wearable technologies to help us alleviate certain physiological obstacles on a daily basis or we’re using technologies which fundamentally augment and/or enhance the human body altogether, the future is definitely heading into the direction of what is quickly becoming known as post-humanity. Imagine a future where humans are no longer the dominant, most intelligent species on the planet, but rather cyborgs whom were technologically enhanced via advanced cybernetics and gene-editing tools. Welcome to the future!
VR Haptic Suit
Three engineers from the University of Rochester, whom started a company known as Nullspace VR, have recently announced they’ll be releasing a developer kit next year of their VR suit which will provide haptic feedback to the user. SOURCE
Future Bionic Eyes
A team of Australian researchers from Monash University are developing bionic eyes which will provide 500 pixels of vision to the blind. Healthy eyes are said to create 1 to 2 million pixels, but these bionic eyes will be a great start nonetheless. SOURCE
Photo Credit: Task and Purpose
Japanese Exoskeleton
Japanese venture-company Innophys from the Tokyo University of Science has developed an exoskeleton back harness, known as the Muscle Suit, which will be capable of taking 66 pounds off of a heavy load for workers, thus reduce work-related back injuries. SOURCE
VA Funds Robot Legs
Keeping up with the present developments of advanced robotic limbs, the Department of Veteran Affairs has recently announced that they’ll now be footing the bill for robotic legs for all paralyzed veterans with spinal cord injuries. SOURCE
About the author
B.J. Murphy is the Editor and Social Media Manager of Serious Wonder. He is a futurist, philosopher, activist, author and poet. B.J. is an Affiliate Scholar for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) and an Ambassador for the robotics company Humai.
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