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"Prosthetics"
Are Exoskeletons “Ableist?”
By Kyle Munkittrick On January 22, 2012 · Leave a Comment · In Bioethics, Body, Medicine, Prosthetics, Rights
In a word, no.
Over at Cyborgology (a blog I am amazed I didn’t discover sooner, given its sister site is Sociological Images) Jenny Davis attempts to figure out if the assistive devices built by Ekso Bionics are “ableist” or if they represent genuine progress. She makes a pretty good [...]
The Society Pages’ Cyborgology dives into our weird relationship with the otherness of the disabled body. While the piece opens with the predictable discussion of Mullins and Pistorius, I was floored by Sarah Wanenchak’s use of Olympic speed skater Apollo Ohno:
Like the images of Mullins and Pistorius, Ohno’s body is explicitly being [...]
Ekso Bionics is a company to watch. Building exoskeletons for everyday use by paraplegics is their goal by 2014. Erika Strickland’s “Good-bye, Wheelchair, Hello Exoskeleton” highlights the progress of some of Ekso’s first patients and the potential in the near future:
[Eythor] Bender, Ekso Bionics’ CEO, is confident that controlling Eksos will come to [...]
What people are able to do with the Kinect and Wii continues to blow my mind. Nintendo and Microsoft would do the world a great service if they opened-up their tech to the mod community for non-profit purposes.
The only interface that has every really mattered: how do I translate my thoughts into action?
The body can be bypassed.
Project Black Mirror should have a kickstarter soon. Fund them.
Via ESPN:
He will be the first amputee athlete at the worlds when he represents South Africa in Daegu, South Korea, as its only runner in the 400 meters. He was also chosen for the 4×400 relay.
The 24-year-old Pistorius was part of a group of 26 athletes picked by Athletics South Africa [...]
m1k3y at grinding points to an excellent video on prosthetics on PBS:
Watch the full episode. See more
Great video from NPR that introduces EcoG:
The translation process from brain to computer is amazing in that it’s really just scientists finding out what happens when they prompt their patients to think about new different things. Slowly, surely, they’re building a map of what our brain’s electrical signals mean.
Robots at Work and at Play at the Atlantic’s InFocus
Pictured: Rewalk legs by Argo Medical Technologies, waiting for their owner to return.
H/T MR
Whether these are spoofs or real, the images are just weird enough to be terrifying. There have been experiments to keep dog heads alive. Collies are obedient and intelligent. Combine that with a walking suit of destruction and we all have a problem. (I like the grenade necklace)
(via BoingBoing)
About
Pop Bioethics, written by Kyle Munkittrick, is an effort to study the ethics of the continuing evolution of the human species via the lens of pop culture and be somewhat entertaining in the process.
Kyle's writing can also be found at Discover's The Crux, Slate's Future Tense, and at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. For questions or comments: comments [at] popbioethics [dot] com
All opinions, ideas, and words either explicit or implicit found within this website are my own and represent no other person, organization, or group.Categories
