The 29-year-old
Brazilian (Juliano Pinto a former athlete) was paralyzed from the waist down
following a 2006 car crash. His prognosis was life in a wheelchair. But this
year, something changed. An international team of 150 scientists, in a
sprawling project that cost $14 million, built an exoskeleton that straps to
Pinto’s body. He controls it with his mind. And on June 12, during the opening
ceremony of the World Cup in São Paulo, Brazil, he thought-controlled that
exoskeleton to stand on his own two feet and kick a soccer ball.
It looked like
an early prototype of Iron Man. Such is the promise of Brain Control Interface
technology, or BCI. The mysteries of the brain have captured the imaginations
of scientists for centuries, and we are now, finally, inching toward a reality
in which we can use computers to tap into the brain, decode its signals and use
that information to operate machines, robots or exoskeletons just by thinking. There
are 6 million people in the United States who are paralyzed. Wide-spread,
thought-controlled medical solutions won’t be available tomorrow or next month
or even next year.
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