New technology has enabled Matthew Nagle, who is paralyzed from the neck down, control a computer using only his thoughts!
Paralyzed from the neck down, but connected to a computer by a wire implanted into the top of his brain, he used his thoughts to draw a rudimentary circle on the video monitor, to pick up objects with a robot arm and even to play simple video games -- chatting with researchers while he did so. ...
In June 2004, doctors at Rhode Island Hospital surgically implanted through the top of Nagle's skull a pea-sized sensor that picked-up the electrical patterns of his intentions -- to move a cursor up, down, right or left -- and a wire leading to computers that decoded the signals from the brain and delivered electronic orders to the video screen.
Similarly, he could use his thoughts to cause a rubber prosthetic hand to open and close, or to manipulate a robot arm to grab a piece of candy and drop it on command. He could change the channels and control the volume of a television set.
Great link, Alex; thanks! Especially impressed by the MAC/Mac reference. It drives me absolutely nuts when people write MAC when talking about Apple products.
Yeah, most of these apply only to Americans. You screwed our language up good. ^_^ But it's odd how some American things actually make more sense than the english version. For example, Americans usually drop the "h" in "herb", while in England it's always pronounced. But the American version is actually correct, as the word herb was originally French and the French don't pronounce the h either. I find it weird how English was invented over here and we still manage to mess it up sometimes, while you guys get it right...
Rosi As for the way the English use english there are a few other things that I think Americans did to "correct" english (I know you were the first speakers but that doesnt mean you are always the most correct ;) ). How can -re at the end of a word possibly be pronounced as -er? That has never made sense to me. Using standard rules of english the could only be pronouced as it is written ("ray" or "ree"). Also, why do you love your u's so much? honour, colour. So pointless. Again contradicting your own pronounciation rules. But I do love a lot of the British slang (us using the word "bathroom" is rather pointless when the vast majority of bathrooms have no bath these days, no showers)
Jeez I should have read over my comment before I posted it! I was trying to give American english speakers a good name but my comment is full of typos! haha what can ya do
Rob, you could argue about the -er thing from a French point of view, too. -er is pronounced "ay", not "er". -re is usually just pronounced as "r". So everyone probably thinks everyone else says it funny.
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As for the way the English use english there are a few other things that I think Americans did to "correct" english (I know you were the first speakers but that doesnt mean you are always the most correct ;) ). How can -re at the end of a word possibly be pronounced as -er? That has never made sense to me. Using standard rules of english the could only be pronouced as it is written ("ray" or "ree"). Also, why do you love your u's so much? honour, colour. So pointless. Again contradicting your own pronounciation rules. But I do love a lot of the British slang (us using the word "bathroom" is rather pointless when the vast majority of bathrooms have no bath these days, no showers)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-re.2C_-er
You can insure against something happening, but it's better to ensure it doesn't happen in the first place.
OK, if they just want one word for it, fine, but it's spreading over here!