[WriterOfMinds]

We've had some talk about neurological implants here, and honestly I had never considered this angle. What if your cyborg stuff breaks after the company that made it has gone bankrupt, and you're left with a useless chunk of circuitry stuck in your body?

https://spectrum.ieee.org/bionic-eye-obsolete

The patients interviewed for this article were at least relieved of blindness for a few years, so the implant may have been a net benefit for them regardless (and some definitely think it was). But it gives me pause when I think about healthy people getting an implant for performance enhancement or recreation.

It's also rather tragic that we are getting close to something like Geordi's visor -- I mean, that's amazing -- and it flopped because the money wasn't there.

[infurl]

The technology wasn't around back when this device was first conceived, but now we would be on the cusp of much simpler and safer alternatives in the form of augmented reality. Imagine something like the driving navigation software on your smartphone, but for pedestrians. Combine something like Google maps with range finding and obstacle detection capability and you would have something that could compete with this device in your pocket. Use audio or tactile cues and you wouldn't even need surgery.

[MagnusWootton]

Well its a little more serious than windows updates,   if this thing becomes common the legacy support HAS to be there, cause its very serious.

[frankinstien]

If anybody remembers when Televisions and stereos were repaired at the component level, tubes, transistors, etc and how TV repair shops opened up just about everywhere and looked really junky with old parts laying everywhere, this issue sounds like a great little market ready to open for those entrepreneurs wanting to provide obsolete body parts repair. Heck, all one needs is a medical degree, an engineering degree and have that intuitive nack to just fix, upgrade, or mod stuff. With all the automation happening this looks like a perfect fit for an old human....

[HS]

The only thing I can think of to add is that going forward these types of companies should have better regulations. A complete transparency policy when informing customers about possible risks would definitely help. Also, a policy stating that the technology must be deemed reversible before it can be sold to the public seems like a good idea.

[infurl]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repo_Men



What happens when you can't make the payments?

[MagnusWootton]

Heck, all one needs is a medical degree, an engineering degree and have that intuitive nack to just fix, upgrade, or mod stuff. With all the automation happening this looks like a perfect fit for an old human....

Now we don't need flakers we need people to GO ALL THE WAY, no half done things.    Every day we lose important people, these important people lost need to be made up for or its devolution for us all, all of humanity.

I wish all you compadre's good luck!    There isn't infinite time, we must take action now.

[LOCKSUIT]

Hehe. I like those sci fi movies and nice thoughts Magnus.

Here's why I think the more advanced artificial organs won't become an issue of keeping, I explain by the end of the paragraph:

Ray Kurzweil's 2009 book is very serious and has good reasons. And the AI field as we saw is moving fast. He too feels 2029 is the date to see AGI. He also says too 2034 we will have nanobots repairing etc in our bloodstream and enhancing the brain to daydream fully but in control, etc. The funny thing is this nano stuff in the 2030s is likely to be arriving from the powerful force that arrives in 2029. So I think we will see artificial organs and such come fast soon and I don't think it's going bankrupt, I think they will be replaced with new full bodies by round 2 when the old one breaks haha. It's that exponential curve, it's all gonna change faster, soon, once AGI is made.

[MagnusWootton]

2022 -> 2029   (7 years from now.)

Just think how amazing that is, to have real artificial sentients around.   Its going to be a total nightmare really tho,  who knows what to expect of it, but maybe some secret places in the russian government, they know what it is like already.   But Its only a guess  -  Maybe we have quantum computers already and its a secret.

building sector, mining, farming, manufacturing, health-care will skyrocket even past todays standards.   Its a strange world to think about, me myself I would prefer banning them from the earth except some "robot world" amusement park, and everything outside gets to stay the same.   But think how horse+kart led to the highways of today,  that kind of difference is startling.

And if that is the future you want to make for yourself,  being in charge of it all I hope you can handle it.

[WriterOfMinds]

Pacemakers are a mature technology, and I'm pretty sure the companies that make those aren't allowed to just let them stop working inside a patient and not do anything about it. So this sort of thing CAN be done right. It's a matter of caring enough to set up the safeguards.

[MagnusWootton]

pace makers are a death sentence.   

[ivan.moony]

My father deals with a pacemaker. He has a control examination and battery change every five years. Never had any problems with it.

However, he is being told not to keep his cellphone near it.

[LOCKSUIT]

"A research team from Utrecht University has successfully fabricated working livers using a newly developed ultrafast volumetric 3D bioprinting method." using light to solidify the liquid

https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/researchers-make-regenerative-medicine-breakthrough-with-volumetric-3d-bioprinted-livers-204463/

I took a further look into the paper and found this below, it seems to confirm it as "very interesting":

"ConclusionsIn  summary,  the  first  phase  of  the  study  takes fundamentalstepsto  unravelthe  effectsof different cellular components (single cells and organoids) on the volumetric printing process,
This article isprotected by copyright. All rights reserved.24namely due  tothecell-mediated  lightscattering  and  its  effect  on  printing  resolution.  Using this  knowledge,  an  optically  tuned,  gelatin-based  bioresin  was  successfullydeveloped  and was  able  to  reduce  scattering  through  refractive  index  matching  of  specific  intracellular components. This  strategy  is  versatile,  and  could  be  potentially  applied  to  resins  used  for volumetric  additive  manufacturing  which  use  other photocrosslinking chemistries  besides methacryloly-based,  such  as  thiol-ene  step  growth.[76]This  development  allowed  high resolution  volumetric  bioprinting  with  increasing  cell  densities,  and provides  important knowledge on the ideal design requirements forthe development of next-generation bioresins for  VBP.  In  combination  with  more  advanced  tomographic  algorithms,  multi-material  and multi-cellular  printing  approaches  can  be  more  easily  established  in  order  to  increase  the overall  complexity  of  volumetrically  printed  architectures.Using  the  liver  as  a  model  tissue platform,  this  study  demonstrated  the  ability  to  harness  the  advantages  of  both  VBP  and organoid  technology  in  a  single  approach  that  resulted  in  the  fabrication  of  multi-scale biofactories  capable  of  guiding  tissue-specific  functions.  Liver-derived  organoids  were successfully  printed  at  high  densities  and  demonstrated  maintained  viability  and  hepatic function  compared  to   extrusion  printed  and  casted  controls.  The  layerless  fabrication approach  employed  by  VBP  resulted  in  increased  organoid  viability  post-printing,  and enabled the preservation of organoid morphology and polarity compared to controls. The soft, organoid-laden  bioresin  was  successfully  sculpted  into  highly  convoluted,  mathematically-derived  structures  with  distinct  structural  properties.  Successful  printing  of  these  cell-laden structures  in  under  20  seconds  and  establishment  of  a  sterile  perfusion  chamber  allowed  the printed  organoids  to  act  as  biofactories  capable  of  modulating  liver-specific  ammonia detoxification  depending  on  the  printed  architecture.  These  findings  demonstrate  the  close relationship  between  the  shape  of theconstructs  and  their  resulting  biological  functionality, further  underlining  the  potential  of  biofabrication for  advancing  tissue  engineering.  This
This article isprotected by copyright. All rights reserved.25study,therefore,opens up new  possibilities  for  the  future  development  of  self-sustaining biofactories that are able to carry out a wide variety to tissue-specific functions. Overall, the combination of the ultra-fast VBP process with organoid technology holds great potential for the   development   of   advanced   regenerative   medicine   approaches   and in   vitromodel development  for fundamental  biology  research, personalized  drug  screening  and  disease modelling."