Future Tech

After having gone over four years without participating in a focus group, I did my second group of the month today and will be doing a third one tomorrow night. 

The first “group” was only me surfing MSN for Microsoft.  Today’s focus group was paid for by for by the University of Washington.  It might have been a preliminary study for cyborg bioethics.

Today’s topic was on implanting chips in the brain to control prosthetic or paralyzed limbs or other external devices.  There were 4 other guys with spinal cord injuries and the facilitator was a women with a spinal cord injury.  It was the woman’s regular job to facilitate focus groups, this one just so happened to be on man/machine interface with respect to spinal cord injuries.

Is it really a robot as in a robotic arm if it is guided by human controls?  Sounds more like a cyborg to me.  Either way, it is another quantum leap forward in human-machine interactions. 

The first focus group was held a mile from my apartment for which I got a copy of MS Office Professional worth maybe $200.  Today’s was in downtown Seattle and I got $75 and a nice discussion about technology.  Tomorrow’s will a freebie discussion about pain management.

My friends hardly listen to me! Hah!  It was nice to get paid for my “expert” opinion.   The other guy were either a lot less technically literate than I was or choose to cite a lot less anecdotal evidence.  They were surprised by the very idea that a wifi device should have secure communications.

I am grateful for my technical literacy, a good education, a fast web connection and a chance to maybe help steer future tech research.