h+ Magazine

Ang’s research focuses on embedded devices such as routers, printers and VOIP phones. And he is the inventor of a novel, host-based defense mechanism known as Symbiotes. Symbiotes are software defenses “designed specifically to retrofit black-box, vulnerable, legacy embedded systems withsophisticated anti-exploitation mechanisms”. Ang’s work with symbiotes might very well be the first line of defense for your future cybernetically enhanced mind.

With each passing year, the ability to alter our minds and bodies through technology grows. Advances in biotechnology, neuroengineering, robotics and myriad other fields are steadily changing the human condition. Many of these changes will be for the better, but there will be a downside too. In the course of augmenting our physical and mental abilities, we’re also introducing new vulnerabilities, opening ourselves up to invasive attacks that could threaten our finances, our identities, even our lives. In short, we’re quickly approaching a time when we’ll have to protect against the hacking of Human 2.0.

New normal: cyborg Eric Selby can see.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine are testing the first “brain pacemaker”, a device which provides for deep brain stimulation, for Alzheimer’s patients.

“if you use a device to help you count cards (or even if you merely possess such a device with the intent to use it) at a Nevada casino, you can be imprisoned for as long as 6 years for a first offense (Nev. Rev. Stat. §465.088, 2010).”

“Imagine a world where London is the world capital of transhumanism.” ~Bruce Sterling

A boy has stunned medics with his ability to see in pitch black with eyes that glow in the dark.

The question of boosting the intelligence of animals other than humans, to the level of self-awareness and consciousness, is one that cannot be considered in isolation from the general process at work in the social and speculative movement known as Transhumanism.

Recently, scientists at USC implanted a memory enhancing chip into rats. By recording the transfer of signals between hippocampal regions (CA3 to CA1), scientists were able to bypass the normal neural connections mice use to encode long term memory. The chip, when activated, allowed the rats to remember how to perform a task despite being drugged to forget how to perform that task. Although the technology is still very early in it testing phase, the scientists hope to apply the same principle to individuals with Alzheimer’s disease or stroke, where memory is often affected.

Lund University in Sweden announced last week that they have successfully targeted artificial implants in a pig by using magnetics to direct therapeutic nanoparticles.
 
Henrik Kempe and Maria Kempe (brother and sister) surface-coated an anti-clotting drug with magnetite nanoparticles and used an external magnet placed over an implanted artery stint. 
 

Ben Goertzel converses with Hugo de Garis on his transhumanist argument for the reality of a Creator.