Eve Online And Real Life Implant News

I know that a lot of people will be disappointed that CCP is not giving out snowball launchers (yet) this holiday season, but players in Eve Online will receive something almost as cool: implants:

CCP is pleased to announce that starting with the release of the Crucible expansion and throughout the holiday season, we will be giving away several gifts to players with active subscriptions to EVE Online.
Players logging in on November 29^th will discover a unique new implant waiting to be redeemed - The Genolution CA-1.  First of two in the ‘Core Augmentation' implant set, the CA-1 offers the following benefits to its lucky hosts:

·         Boosts perception by 3
·         Provides +1.5% powergrid bonus
·         Provides +1.5% capacitor amount bonus
·         Implant set bonus: 50%

The Genolution CA-1 will be distributed during the Crucible release to all active subscribers of EVE Online. Instructions for redeeming items can be found here.

Watch the EVE news and the Crucible Feature Site for more information on what's in store for your characters this winter!

Happy Holidays!

But the technology behind Eve Online's implants is not in a galaxy far, far away 200 centuries in the future.  On Sunday the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine published a press release on their latest work in the field:

"A team of researchers co-led by the University of Pennsylvania has developed and tested a new high-resolution, ultra-thin device capable of recording brain activity from the cortical surface without having to use penetrating electrodes. The device could make possible a whole new generation of brain-computer interfaces for treating neurological and psychiatric illness and research. The work was published in Nature Neuroscience.

'The new technology we have created can conform to the brain's unique geometry, and records and maps activity at resolutions that have not been possible before,' says Brian Litt, MD, the study's senior author and Associate Professor of Neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine and Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. 'Using this device, we can explore the brain networks underlying normal function and disease with much more precision, and its likely to change our understanding of memory, vision, hearing and many other normal functions and diseases.' For our patients, implantable brain devices could be inserted in less invasive operations and, by mapping circuits involved in epilepsy, paralysis, depression and other 'network brain disorders' in sufficient detail, this could allow us to intervene to make patients better, Litt said."

 FuturePundit had the quote of the week concerning this news:

"The scientists say it is for people with diseases. But of course the gamers will eventually be the biggest users. Of course, if virtual game playing is an addiction the scientists are right anyhow."

FuturePundit also had more on another study about video game addition which is a bit off-topic but still worth the read:

"What I wonder: have video games shifted people from drug addiction to game addiction? If so, video games might actually be reducing brain damage by giving people something less harmful to get addicted to. On the other hand, since video games are [sic] illegal and have less of a stigma about them more people can become addicted to them more easily."

I'm constantly amazed at how much I see the beginnings of the tech seen in Eve Online emerge into the real world.  I'm tempted to put FuturePundit on my blogroll just to remind me of the fact.

(h/t Instapundit)