USC Designs Bar Code Reader

Wal-Mart and Target take note: Science students at the University of Southern California have designed Bar Code Reader, a program to help the visually impaired read information on grocery items by pointing their cellphones at supermarket shelves to hear descriptions of products and prices. That's just one of many products designed during ProjectPossibility, a two-day competition aimed at developing computer programs that help disabled people expand their capabilities. Another futuristic program, which could also help the physically disabled become better online shoppers, is Mind Control, which allows the physically disabled to guide a computer mouse by neural impulses. Yes, you heard it right. Using using brain waves and eye movements to control computers is already at the cutting-edge of bionic research. Earlier this year, researchers at Duke University announced that they had proved monkeys can use their brainpower to control the walking patterns of robots, a major step toward helping victims of paralysis walk again. Mind you, the USC team completed their projects in just two days. According to the New York Times, James Han, founder of ProsForPros, an Internet hosting and consulting firm for small businesses, who was the mentor of the Mind Control team, says: “We were able to leverage open-source codes for mouse control and link to the neural actuator in the first 12 hours,” Mr. Han said. “In the second 12, we created the user interface.” Imagine what these guys can do in a year or two.

Kurzweil: The Grandfather of Assistive Tech

Ray Kurzweil is a scientist and inventor of groundbreaking assistive technology, including a text-to-speech synthesizer, voice recognition software, and a print-to-speech reading machine for the blind. Known as the grandfather of assistive technology, Kurzweil is highly regarded in disability circles as well as the broader technology sphere. He placed 14th on Silicon.com's Agenda Setters list for 2008, mainly for his current work surrounding artificial intelligence and robotics. Cnet.com posted Silicon.com's Q&A with Kurzweil, where he discussed his vision of the future and AI. I find Kurzweil's research and philosophies fascinating. Not only has he improved the lives of people with disabilities with assistive tech, he has been on a mission for the last decade to make bionics and AI a cornerstone of human existence -- and help us live better, smarter, longer lives. Some key points from his interview:

On the law of accelerating returns: "What used to fit in a building now fits in your pocket, what fits in your pocket now will fit inside a blood cell in 25 years."

On the most exciting technologies in recent years: "Health and medicine ... We have software that's running in our bodies that's thousands of years old or more and it evolved when conditions were very different, such as the fat insulin receptor gene. And what would happen if we turned that gene off? There are other genes that are necessary for heart disease or cancer to progress that we'd like to turn off."

On the limits of computer intelligence: "In order for a computer or any entity to pass the Turing Test it has to master human emotion ... Getting the joke, being funny, expressing a loving sentiment -- these are actually the most complicated things we do, the cutting edge of human intelligence." [Editor's note: This statement speaks volumes for austism and other disorders, in which such emotions are seemingly impossible to convey yet have no direct relevance on intelligence.]

On whether super intelligent machines will have a soul: "The soul is a synonym for consciousness ... It's not going to be a clear distinction of where humans or biological intelligence stops and machine intelligence starts ... You won't be able to walk into a room and say, 'OK, humans on the left, machines on the right,' because it's going to be all mixed up ... we will attribute consciousness to entities even if they have no biology."

On man vs. machine: "Ultimately non-biological intelligence will be much more powerful than biological human intelligence, but it's not an invasion of intelligent machines from Mars -- it's coming from our own civilization. And we will use it as we do today to expand our own reach--we will make ourselves smarter."