Breakthrough Experiment Wires Living Nerve Tissue To Silicon Chips

Damn, that's exciting. The article describes potential applications such as enabling the blind to see, or permitting paralytics to "move objects with their thoughts".

There is, of course, a more earthshaking possibility, which is that of hooking our brains directly into a computer network.

Sure, it's many decades off; even after this neuron-bonding technology is perfected, and they find a way to wire an entire brain, they'll still have to find a strategy to cope with the fact that every brain is structured differently. It won't be quite as simple as hooking up a biomech interface to an optic nerve. It will require heavy training of both the user and the implants themselves (after all, the cluster of neurons that hold the concept "sphere" will be in a different place in each brain), but think of what could be done!

Email without keyboards. Save a "photo" of what you're seeing through your own eyes. Call up a "heads-up display" listing information about the person you're talking to, so you can avoid a faux pas like calling his wife by the wrong name. Throw away the cellphone and hold your conversations silently -- hell, have business meetings in cyberspace; if you can project any virtual image you want, they don't need to know you're sitting at home in your underwear. Play computer games indistinguishable from reality. Download foreign languages or skill sets and start using them right away, à la The Matrix.

Of course, it would probably just end up being used for porn.