This seems pretty significant. And, I hate to sound gross but doesn't that technically mean a prosthesis could be attached as an extra instead of a replacement?
My takeaway: we have no idea whether the neurocontrol parts of the brain are this plastic. It might work great; it might totally fail. Nobody knows yet.
How can i get one, and how expensive (medically and financially) will my additional sets of arms be?
So what could be done? Probably an indirect method would work better. Use existing motor controls (maybe finger gestures?) and an eye tracker to direct your doctor octopus arms (for which power and weight will be primary concerns).
We won’t get sensory feedback properly, but you might imagine having a single external device which channels some sort of sensory trick to 80/20 it.
When will this arrive? Wearable arms probably don’t have a market, but the control scheme and sensory feedback are going to be top of mind for VR / AR hardware devs I would think
It would be nice, I would be able to type on keyboard and drink tea with cookies without stopping. But there is mouse here... So I need three additional arms. Not like mine, with less strength but with thinnier fingers and a finer precision. If it possible then without a tremor. And an eye on each palm, for I could to see things really closely.
Patience and/or time travel
> how expensive (medically and financially) will my additional sets of arms be?
You may find your preexisting thoughts and desires overruled by the machine's, which mostly consist of a burning desire to kill Spider-Man.
It's a reasonable adaptation of the term to have it mean "capable of transmitting touch signals to the wearers nervous system" in the context of prosthetics.
My assumption is that the exposed components are not just made from titanium (biocompatibility) but are also textured in such a way that soft tissue can enforce a seal, but I'm speculating because I'm not finding the necessary documentation on it. Someone more informed may be able to chime in.
Edit: This is the closest starting point I've found for your continued reading.
http://www.jdionline.org/article.asp?issn=0974-6781;year=201...
I bet the doctors have thought an awful lot about the balance between the risks and benefits.
