November 8, 2015

EP. 93 — BONUS EP! Real Superpowers and New Human Senses

In the last few years ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ and ‘Elysium’ showed near-futures where soldiers weren’t limited by their physical capabilities, but instead were enhanced by mech-suits. It’s a concept that provides for very entertaining movies, but considering we have no plans to fight hordes of aliens or wage a class war on the Lamborghini of space stations, can mech-suits have any real-life applications to us in the coming years? Or are they strictly limited to warfare?

 

Let’s say mech-suits do become a routine part of daily life. Will they help us for the better or just turn us into the soft and doughy humans like those aboard the starship Axiom in ‘Wall-E’?

 

Jack O’Brien ask all of these questions and more of Oliver Mayer, Principal Engineer at GE Global Research and an expert in robotics, who believes we’re all a little bit cyborg already. Jack is then joined by Scott Novich, the co-founder and CTO of NeoSensory, Inc., a company helping the deaf hear by harnessing an underused sense: touch. From there, they talk about how this technology could potentially lead to humans gaining new senses.

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Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/5-parts-u.s.-economy-that-are-stranger-than-you-think

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Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/9-times-pop-culture-accidentally-taught-people-to-save-lives/