Cyborg Geologists Take the Red Pill

Posted 12 Jan 2004 at 21:19 UTC by steve

A new research paper (PDF format) suggests that astrobiologists and geologists should work in a virtual world that extends their senses rather than using traditional approaches. The paper presents the argument using the Matrix films as an analogy. As an example, they offer the idea of a human with ViA wearable computer equipment that interfaces via neural network software to the vision system of a Mars probe. (the software is named, appropriately, the Neural EditOr or NEO). The human and the computer each provide the types of image processing they're good at resulting in some interesting views. See the Cyborg Astrobiologist project website for more information.

Telepresence, posted 12 Jan 2004 at 21:33 UTC by earlwb » (Master)

Telepresence, It's really neat, but....there is a 6-7 minute wait for a light speed signal to reach Mars, then you have a 6-7 minute wait for the light speed signal to return (or is it 6-7 minutes round trip total?).

Unless someone gets quantum twin particle communications going it's going to be hard to get a decent interactive speed going there from Earth with something on Mars that is real time.

I personally would go insane trying to telepresence a robot on Mars from Earth at those time delay speeds for everything you want to do.

Too much fiction, not enough science, posted 13 Jan 2004 at 07:35 UTC by motters » (Master)

Oh dear. Don't get me wrong, I like sci-fi movies. But to me a computer science paper should be about computer science, not just a promotion for a piece if fiction. Quoting scenes from sci-fi films and including many hollywood images in a science paper just makes me feel queasy.

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