Impacts of Going Digital

There is no denying that the world is going digital. From digital cameras to digital vouchers to digital art, everything seems to be going online. It wasn't too long ago when you had to buy a disk to watch a movie, play a game or listen to an album. Now all you need is an access code and an internet connection. 

With the digital revolution, humanity has never had so much instant access to so many things. With the click of a button, one can read dozens of news articles, but what are the impacts. Yes, technology and digitalisation has advanced humanity tremendously, but at what cost? 

Every situation has at least two sides to it. With the internet, came ways to buy and sell goods across continents, from the comfort of your home. This unfortunately also made it easier for criminals to move contraband. 

The journal "Wired" goes into more detail about this.

The Wired, UK

As of the 2020's, digital currency has become the main focus. Crypto-currencies, a term coined by Satoshi Nakamoto, are basically a digital form of the everyday coin. What made crypto-currencies like Bitcoin successful, other than the fact that it was a new innovation, was the fact that the growth of the currency was independent of the federal reserve. This meant that government had no control over the creation of the currency. This, along with the fact that Bitcoin has a finite supply, means that hyper-inflation is near impossible, since governments cannot print more of it to pay debts or bail out banks. Basically, with crypto-currencies like Bitcoin, the value cannot end up like  the Zimbabwean dollar. 

Now as I've said, there are two sides. Countries like China have what they call a "social credit" system, where the government is in control of the national currency. The issue with this is that the party in charge has every say in what your money is used for, as digital forms of currency are extremely easy to control and track by the parties that build and implement them. This removes freedom from the individual to purchase what they want.

Read more at DiVA portal

Let's look at South Africa. What would happen if the RSA were to implement a crypto-currency. First off, if it is controlled by the government, it should be an instant no. Much like Eskom, Postnet and government industries in general, lack of competition and huge amounts of greed and corruption have caused these agencies to fail. Second, with a population that is over 40% unemployed, if crypto currencies become mainstream, the unemployed will never be able to buy their own things. It is already difficult as most people don't carry cash.

Now this short blog doesn't even get into the more complex issues. What I'm saying is that technological innovation is hugely important for humanity, but we need to be careful. A great quote to describe this comes from Jurassic Park.

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.” - Ian Malcolm, played by Jeff Goldblum in 1993 Jurassic Park.

So before you innovate, think about the repercussions.

Thank you.

Prosthetic Advancement

 For many years, I have been interested in robotics. More accurately, in what robotics can do for the betterment of humanity. 

This is a photo of my Aunt, who would like to keep her name out of this:

Photo courtesy of  Karen Du Toit.

My Aunt was attacked by a dog. A struggle that ended with the dogs passing, and the loss of her right arm. This changed both her life, and the life of her family forever. 

I bring this up purely because this was the spark that lit the fire of interest in prosthetics. Prosthetics have advanced drastically over the years, from hooks and wooden pegs to articulating fingers controlled directly by the brain.

Photo by the BBC.

   

Photo by Hortons orthotics and prosthetics.

Video sourced from Pexels.com.

It's important to note that prosthetic arms and prosthetic legs are vastly different in their sophistication and development. This is a result of the much higher demand for prosthetic legs. Unfortunately, with many agencies thinking of profit over impact, the upper limb prosthetic market has been left with no choice but to use outdated, homemade or extremely expensive solutions. That is, until recently.

Today I'd like to draw your attention to the most lifelike prosthetic I've found thus far. I found this group on YouTube. The channel name; simply, "Clone". This small group is taking a different approach to the engineering of the hands to other prosthetics developers. What I find strange is that they don't seem to be trying to make prosthetics, but androids. This is irrelevant to this blog as I am simply looking at the advancement in the fluidity and realism of the hands movements. This is due to the fact that despite their goal being an android, their technology can be utilised in other applications.

So how have they decided to tackle the issue of organic movement, compared to other researchers. Well, where most researchers opt for servos and motors to articulate their arms and fingers, the Clone team decided to use hydraulics. More specifically, they chose to mimic the muscular structure of a human arm using what is commonly referred to as "McKibben  hydraulic/pneumatic muscles".

Here is a video by XYZAidan detailing artificial hydraulic muscles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAHNJdxF6Cw

Now you might be wondering, why don't more people use artificial muscles in their prosthetic builds. It's simple. First, these systems require tanks of hydraulic fluid in order to run, which is no problem for a robot, but a human wouldn't want to wear a massive tank on their back. Second, Hydraulic systems are loud, and third, these artificial muscles lack the same range of movement as organic muscles. This last issue has been the main reason for the lack of interest in hydraulic muscles, as the other issues can be solved or avoided. This brings me to the brilliance of the team at Clone. I do not know exactly how they have managed to overcome the limited movement of hydraulic musculature, but I presume they have utilised a form of mechanical advantage and have manipulated some ratios to equate minimal movement in the muscles to a high degree of movement in the fingers.

Here is a short video from their channel, so you can witness first hand how real the hand moves:

https://youtube.com/shorts/_QUiB4MTKWk?si=54FPMKZM-ecFm9ck

Please go ahead and give this channel some support.

Thank you.