Oscar Pistorius, a runner without legs, almost could not compete in the Olympics because it was thought that his prosthetic legs would give him an unfair advantage over runners who had ankles.  Technology is improving the health community every day.  Advancements have made it so those with disabilities that would have made it difficult to live even 50 years ago, can now live full and happy lives. If one area of the world has had a positive reaction from technology and robotics, it is certainly health.

In prosthetics and paralysis, robots are becoming increasingly useful.  There have been tests with monkeys to see if they can use a chip in their brain to manipulate their arm.  Duke University is researching and testing neurochips that would be used to help paralyzed patients to start using limbs again.  They implant a chip in the brain and receivers in the limb or limbs. Recently a man in Italy used his mind to manipulate a robotic hand.  He can make gestures and even feel some sensations.  This experiment lasted for a month, but testing over the next few years may make it possible for people to have a replacement hand that they can use to hold and feel sensations with.

Robots are being developed to help people in situations where they cannot help themselves. ASIMO, a robot developed by Honda has gone through a series of changes since its early beginnings in 1986, as a pair of legs, to a robot that can walk, run, use stairs, recognize faces, map its surroundings, grasp objects, and even recognize some voice commands.  In the future ASIMO is hopefully going to be able to perform some very valuable functions like, help elderly people with tasks that they themselves cannot complete, act like a Seeing Eye dog would, or go into places that would be dangerous for humans.  There are projects underway with robotics and baby boomers.  There is a shortage of caregivers in the United States, but with the creation of Smart Homes, pill dispensers, fall detection and clothing sensors, the elderly will be able to stay in their own homes for longer and still be safe.  Someday soon there may be service robots in homes to help with daily chores such as cleaning that those who are bedridden cannot perform themselves.

Robots can now be seen in many health facilities. In a few hospitals robots are being used so that personal physicians can see their patients from a long distance.  The doctor’s face is seen on the TV screen-head and the doctor uses a joystick to move the robot to see the patient.  People prefer this because they get to see their own doctor and not someone they have never met.  Robots are also being used to perform surgery in a variety of ways.  The Robot can be used by a person for long distance to perform the surgery.  Another method is the surgery is performed by the robot using a set of instructions that the doctor inputs before the surgery.  The patients it monitored by the doctor, but all of the procedure is performed by the robot.  McKesson ROBOT-Rx is used in health facilities to dispense medicine for entire hospitals.  It is faster than humans and virtually error free.  Nanorobotics can target a specific area that drugs are to be dispensed to in the human body to make treatment more effective.

Some people fear that robots will take over the world or Skynet will come true.  This is extremely improbably.  Robots are metal objects that can perform specific tasks that they were programmed to do.  When you get down to it they are merely zeroes and ones.  Unless some angry god of all things binary happens to descend to earth, all of humanity is safe.  If one company happens to rise up and use technology to manipulate humanity, they won’t be able to get all of the programmers in the world.  There is always someone better who could create a better counter robot army.  People who lived during the Cold War years ago thought that the world was going to end at any moment because of nuclear holocaust, but power is regulated and one group harming another would affect the masses.

Technology and robotics have the potential to alleviate many of the world’s health problems.  Although they world will never be perfect, robots have the ability to make life easier.  People with paralysis and missing limbs will someday be as physically able as everyone else.  Due to robotic monitoring and assistance, the elderly may be able to live on their own longer, which many will prefer to nursing homes.  Surgery will be performed with less and less human error.  Robotics will make healthcare much more effective, the future is bright

Bibliography

• “Prosthetic Robotics “. Prosthetic Robotics . 10 Dec 2009 <http://prostheticrobotics.com/>.
• Hanlon, Mike. “First human robotic arm implant”. gizmag. 10 Dec 2009 <http://www.gizmag.com/go/4282/>.
• David, Ariel. “Experts: Man controlled robotic hand with thoughts”. Yahoo. 10 Dec 2009 <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091202/ap_on_sc/eu_italy_robotic_hand>.
• “ASIMO – The World’s Most Adavanced Humanoid Robot”. Honda. 10 Dec 2009 <http://asimo.honda.com/InsideAsimo.aspx>.
• msnbc.com staff and news service reports, “Robot doctor gets thumbs-up from patients”. MSNBC. 10 Dec 2009 <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4946229/>.
• Lysaght , “Robot-Assisted Surgery”. Brown University. 10 Dec 2009 <http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BI108/BI108_2005_Groups/04/>.
• Freudenheim , Ellen. “Robotics for Healthcare and Elderly”. Seniors Health Medicare. 10 Dec 2009 <http://seniors-health-medicare.suite101.com/article.cfm/wired_new_chapter_in_robotics_for_health_care>.
• “Hospital Robots”. Used Robots. 10 Dec 2009 <http://www.used-robots.com/robot-education.php?page=robots+in+the+hospital>.

Q: How will you start your paper?
A: I will start my paper by talking about Oscar Pistorius, who almost couldn’t compete in the Summer Olympics because it was thought he had an unfair advantage over humans with ankles.

Q: What is your thesis?
A: If area of the world has had a positive reaction for technology, it is certainly health.

Q: What is your counter argument?
A: Health should be left up to God and human beings do not have the right to play God.

Q: What are three points of your argument?
A: 1. If God has given us everything, then he has given us the ability to better our selves, therefore we should use it.
 2. The development of robotics can help people with disabilities to develop and live normal lives.
 3. Technology has made it possible to prevent disease by creating vaccines and treatments for ailments.

Q: What is your conclusion?
A: Technology and robotics have the potential to alleviate many of the world’s health problems.

Q: Name at least three of your sources:
A: 1. http://prostheticrobotics.com/
 2. http://www.gizmag.com/go/4282/
 3. http://www.wtec.org/bci/workshop/05_Chapin.pdf

There is a center at the University of Chicago that studied the reactions of new Democracies n in Eastern and Central Europe.  Many people were antigovernment after the end of Communism.  People had a kind of libertarianism; they believed everything could take care of itself and fall into place without government intervention, but there was a huge need for government.  Markets failed and people fell into chaotic and malicious behaviors.  Then there was the internet: a place of true freedom.  One could speak their mind without governmental control.  The government could threaten people in cyberspace, but had no true power.  The author believes that liberty everywhere comes at least a little from the state.  He believes that there should be a constitution of sorts to preserve liberty.  It should not control, but rather guarantee to protect certain values.

Chapter 2

                Cyberspace is richer than the internet; it is an experience of an online community.  Most people over 40 don’t experience cyberspace just the internet, but children often spend many hours inhabiting cyberspace.  A woman named Martha and a man named Dank were neighbors and had an argument about Dank’s dog dying from eating a petal off of Martha’s poisonous flowers.  This argument took place in cyberspace.  Millions of people spend many hours in these MMOGs and build a life and community of their own.  MMOGs came from MUDs and MOOs, which were text based games.  People build realities that they want to live in games like Second Life.  Martha and Dank’s problem was solved by making the plants only poisonous when purchased.  With cyberspace people can get around some laws, such as gambling being illegal, just gamble online from a server that is from a different area.  Jake wrote horrible stories about raping women and put them on a forum.  News got back to where he lived and he was arrested.  He claimed he had a first amendment right to write what he wanted to.  He hadn’t done anything to anyone.  He was set free and continued to write and reach millions of people.  The FBI could set out a worm that searched people’s hard drives for a particular file even if there was no suspicion.  Is that constitutional?  The themes of the previous stories were regulability, code regulation, latent ambiguity, and competing sovereigns.

Chapter 3

                It is believed that cyberspace can’t be regulated.  “is-ism” is the mistake of confusing how something is and how it must be.  Cyberspace is a certain way, but that is not necessarily how it has to be.  Cyberspace can be rewritten to regulate.  In the beginning of the Internet, colleges maily had a access.  At the University of Chicago students could access anonymously, but at Harvard they had to be registered, sign a user agreement, and were monitored.  Net95 had three imperfections: information about the user, geography, and information about use.  It was hard to enforce rules because of this.  If a state wanted to block porn from children, they couldn’t do it because of those imperfections.

Chapter 4

                If you don’t know who someone is or where they are, they can’t be regulated.  On the original internet everyone was invisible.  Germany asked CompServ to regulate porn, but they couldn’t do it.  Then they decided to filter by a country-by-country basis.  To do this they had to identify, authenticate, and credential.  IPs have been used to help with that.  Cookies can trace where someone has been and help to track what a person is doing.  SSOs have become an important tool for identification.

Chapter 5

Commerce has been made more effective by technology.  London installed cameras and charge a fee for people who drove in Central London (an overcrowded district with lots of traffic), who did not have to be there.  They plan to perpetually monitor where all cars are at all times in London.   Telephones are now regulated.  This is extended to cell phones.  The government is checking logs of how computers are used.  The government is trying to ensure they have to ability to crack all encryption.  None of these can be regulated easily, but the government is trying.

Robovie

Sony invented a robot dog named AIBO, which could fetch its pink ball, hold out its paw, and “learn” other behaviors and develop a “personality” from interactions with its owners.  Peter Kahn used AIBO in a few studies involving early adopters, children, and teens. 

The 182 of early adopters got on forums and discussed AIBO.  The responses were coded by the following categories: Technological Essences, Lifelike Essences, Mental States, Social Rapport, and Moral Standing.  It was expected that people would discuss AIBO like a real animal and there would be no moral relationship.  Many people viewed AIBO as possessing life-like essences, having a mental life, engaging in social interaction, and offering companionship, but few affirmed AIBO’s moral standing (they still realized it is a robot).

80 children were in the preschool study and divided into 3 groups.  They studied the behavioral categories of exploration, apprehension, affection, mistreatment, endow animation, and attempt reciprocity.  Children explored more with AIBO, they were more apprehensive with AIBO, they were almost equal in affection, they mistreated the stuffed dog a lot more, they endow animation much more to the stuffed dog, and attempted reciprocity more with AIBO.  Young children attempted reciprocal interactions with AIBO, and reciprocal social interactions are important to moral development.

90 children age 9, 12, and 15, were studied.  They watched a 12 minute movie about social interactions with Robovie.  Each child watched Robovie being harmed.  Then all were interviewed for 50 minutes to assess their views.  This experiment hasn’t been coded yet, but the results seem to reveal that children and teens can have a social and moral relationship with Robovie.

An iphone wedding cake. Some people are obsessed.

I’m not a big supporter of people dropping anything over $50 for a phone, but if it comes with apps like this I guess I can let it slide.

The App Store now has new useful and fun apps.  There is a translator English/ Spanish, that translates both ways during a conversation, for $25 it’s still a spectacular deal.  There is a camera that can take time lapse video called the Timelapser (great name) for only $1.  I love board games and they now have a large electronic board game collection.  Although I prefer DC, I am a little excited about the Marvel comics that are now available for $2 a pop.  For those sports fans, you can now watch every Baseketball game you want for $40 a year.  I may consider dropping the money for this sweet packeage.

Pros: It will save you when faced with a group of foreigners looking for directions.

Cons: The moolah.

Best Buy is starting its own movie streaming service.  It has recieved licensing from CinemaNow, with 20,000 movie titles.  It should be up and running near the end of 2009.

The software for the new service will be available on Insignia TVs and blu-rays from Best Buy.  Best Buy is making sure that you’ll leave the store with something that has the capability to use the movie service.

CinemaNow is available on Laptop, Blu-rays and other devices, but Best Buy wants the capability of transfering the movies between two devices.

Although Best Buy is a partner with both Netflix and Blockbuster, the company stands by the position that they are merely giving the customer more choices.

Pros:  Competition potentially lowers prices, so as low as Netflix is now, it may get even lower.

Cons: A lot of equipment from Best Buy will have this software built into it whether you want it or not.

DARPA will soon release their 2009 prototypes of prosthetic limbs.  They enthusiastically named it “Luke’s Arm”, after Luke’s prosthetic arm in Star Wars.  Although arms as functional and advanced as Luke’s are still a little ways off, researchers are optimistic.

The Biomedical team eventually wants signals between the silicon and muscle to be transfered to the brain.  This may be eventually achieved by implanting myoelectric transmitters.  This is still to come.  The current work is far from what the team has originally planned.

The problem is translating the human body’s chemicals into electro-mechanical signals and visa-versa.  There have been a few developments in this area, but prosthetics cannot sense a chemical change.

Pros:  The research is leading to a solution for those who are missing limbs.  I think this would be very beneficial to everyone, because it could help the seriously physically disabled.

Cons:  It isn’t ready yet.

The University of Leeds in the UK has developed a robotic arm to help children with dyspraxia, a disorder that effects the motor skill of 6% of children, such as Daniel Radcliffe the star of the Harry Potter movies.  These children have problems performing simple tasks such as writing, tying knots, or buttoning shirts.  This robotic arm is supposed to help train the children to improve their motor skills.  The robotic arms assists the children in a simulation, where the child must use a pen to push a ball down a 3D track on a computer screen.  The system uses slight force to help guide the child’s hand.   The robotic arm is used at home instead of the hospital, so it is more comfortable for kids.

The Pros:  This could help children to develop important skills.  This disorder often results in a loss of self-confidence, this will boost them.  I think that it is a marvelous invention.  I hope it has great results.

The cons:  I can see a single con from this except may be the cost, which is probably outrageous.

Elena Bodnar started her career as a scientist in the Ukraine and witness the effects of Chernobyl.  She realized that most of the women were wearing bras and the idea of a bra that can also turn into a gas mask came to her.  The bra is supposed to filter Iodine-131.

This is interesting, it could save lives of women.  Men and children on the other hand should have something as well.  Maybe a tie with a filter or a book-bag.  It is a little impractical, but I think it is better than nothing.

IBM is researching a way to make genetic coding easier to identify.  They are developing a machine based off a failed protype, that will separate and measure the DNA.  They hope to lower the cost of DNA analysis and make it a frequent tool in doctor’s offices. It may be a matter of a few years before this procedure is common practice.

This is important because it can help identify the precise infection, virus or other ailment that may be affecting a patient.  This would make medical treatment more specific to the individual person.  It may be able to identify unexpressed genetic abnormalities that will effect offspring.  I do not see a con to this DNA analysis.  I am looking forward to this.