Source: Tech Radar
Security & Justice
Captured Hezbollah Operative May Have Been Israeli Double Agent, Report Suggests
The alleged senior Hezbollah operative abducted by Israeli special forces last week in Batroun may have been operating as a double agent, according to a report by The Telegraph.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Lebanon’s Probe into Israeli Raid Expected to Take Days as Security Officials Weigh Theories
Lebanese authorities are ramping up investigations into an Israeli commando raid last week in the northern coastal city of Batroun, during which Imad Amhaz, a Hezbollah official, was snatched.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Opinion
The Emptying of Baalbek Is a Moment to Take Stock
“Large numbers of people continue to flee their homes every day, as Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have been going on unabated.” These disturbing words could be from almost any news report about Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbour over the past month. However, they can be found in a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre issued on July 27, 2006.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
A Future Without Hezbollah
At the end of September, when Israel’s campaign to destroy Hezbollah was reaching its height, I met one of the group’s supporters in a seaside café in western Beirut. He was a middle-aged man with a thin white beard and the spent look of someone who had not slept for days. He was an academic of sorts, not a fighter, but his ties to Hezbollah were deep and long-standing.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Sports
Tottenham Forward Son Heung-min Crowned Asia’s International Player of the Year
Tottenham forward Son Heung-min was crowned as Asia’s International Player of the Year for the fourth time by the Asian Football Confederation at its annual awards ceremony Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Real Madrid Launch Investigation into Racist Insults After El Clasico Defeat
Real Madrid has launched an investigation into racist insults directed at players during Saturday’s 4-0 home loss to Barcelona in LaLiga, it said on Sunday.
Monday, October 28, 2024
Thursday 21 March 2024 18:16:53
Neuralink's Brain Implant Has Helped A Man Play Chess Using His Mind, So Maybe The Tech Was A Good Idea After All
Neuralink has given us our first glimpse of its brain chip being used by a human, and the footage has convinced us the tech might be a much better idea than it first sounded.
In a nine-minute six-second live stream shared via X (formerly Twitter), we see Noland Arbaugh – the first human to be implanted with the Neuralink chip, which happened back in January – playing a game of chess on his computer using his mind.
According to Arbaugh, using the implant is like using the Force – he just stares at a point on the screen and the cursor moves where he wants. This allows him to drag digital chess pieces around on the Chess.com client, and he adds he’s enjoyed other titles like Civilization VI using the tech – which Arbaugh says he recently played for “eight hours straight.”
The footage is nothing less than a technical marvel, though Arbaugh did admit that the tech isn’t yet perfect – they “have run into some issues” along the way, and his Civ VI binge was held back by needing to wait for the implant to charge.
Next-gen accessibility tech
Brain-computer interfaces aren’t new, but invasive options like actually having a chip implanted in one of our brains are still fairly fresh on the scene and did sound terrifying – especially a chip created by a company headed up by Elon Musk of all people.
But seeing the clip Neuralink shared, it's immediately clear how beneficial its chip and other brain implants could be as a way to make the digital world accessible again for people with permanent paralysis like Arbaugh (who was left paralyzed below the shoulders after a diving accident).
Obviously, there’s still a lot of development that needs to happen in the field. Neuralink is just a few months into its first six-year-long human trial, and beyond testing its continued safety, some of those kinks Arbaugh mentioned need to get worked out.
Plus, we're still not convinced that brain implants will be the next smartphones, but if things continue to progress well in Neuralink's trials we wouldn't be surprised if they become a common accessibility tool for people with mobility struggles at some point in the future.
