My name is Rob Spence and I'm a Cyborg
I lost my eye after a shotgun accident 6 years ago
These engineers helped me build a prosthetic eye with a wireless video camera inside


Now, they call me Eyeborg.


This is Adam Jensen, the main character from the video game Deus Ex Human Revolution.
He's also a cyborg, but from the year 2027
He's got a camera eye as well, and.. some other high level augmentations
I recently traveled around the globe to meet some of today's most advanced cyborgs
I wanted to find out how far off we are now from Adam Jensen's prosthetic technology


Naturally, the eye is the first thing I wanted to look at.
Prosthetic eyes in the world of Deus Ex are digital and they interface directly with the brain


My own bionic eye is simply a camera that transmits video to a receiver with no connection to the optic nerve
I went to Finland to meet Miika Terho a blind man who actually had such a connection


>> MIKKA: I was involved in a research project, in November 2008 I was in a surgery and there was a chip implanted underneath my retina
It was a test version that I had, I knew that it was only about 3 month time that I would have the chip


The retinal chip is very small in size it’s a 3 by 3 millimeters it is placed right underneath the retina in order to replace the broken photo receptors


"and its curving like... a little bit like.. well it must be a banana"


>>ROB: Adam's eyes don't just restore vision, they also add situational data known as augmented reality also called terminator vision
>>JOSEPH: Augmented reality is the super imposition of data unto the world that you see.
For instance we have a firefighter mask that's in prototype right now that allows the firefighter to get some essential data today
It uses relatively low fidelity computer processors to present them with oxygen levels ambient room temperature
In this world, in the firefighter environment you make a fist it activates the menu and it puts the menu in your hand and it's actually on your fingertips.
I anticipate within the next year we'll have functioning prototypes and in the following year we'll have products that we can bring the market.

>>ROB: Adam's eyes are combination of a video prosthetic that replaces his eyeball - like my own, that is connected to his optic nerve - like Miika's retinal chip and that incorporates augmented reality like Tanagram partner's fire mask
It would appear that we have the building blocks for Adam's prosthetic eye today but what about prosthetic arms?


Prosthetic arms in the world of Deus Ex are much stronger than human arms, and they have more options


They're more accurate and they even help you play piano better.
Meet Jason Henderson from West Virginia and Keiron Mccammon from California.


Good afternoon, So these arms are.. I mean how does these arms work?
>>JASON: The remaining muscles that are in your arm have electrical signals that come from your nervous system -Like these ones? -Yeah
>>KEIRON: So I have a mio-electric sensor, the one here and then another one on the other side
So when I contract one muscle and the hand opens, when I contract the other muscle and the hand closes 

>>ROB: Can you flip the bird with your -I can still.. -You don't have to put that..

>>KEIRON: Then I have a wrist rotation unit which is independent of the hand,
whenever I contract both muscles at the same time I can essentially rotate the hand, one way or the other.

>>ROB: I am now filming your bionic hand with my bionic eye –It's pretty cool
>>KEIRON: It's kind of I'm thinking but I'm not thinking: "okay I've got to open my hand" I'm just thinking as if I had a hand there and I just want to open it.

>>ROB: Where is biomechanical technology going in the future 
>>JASON: I think this has laid a good foundation with the product such as the **eyelin
I don't know if it'll be robotics that ultimate replace missing body parts but genetically I can see it becoming very quick in the next decade or so
>>ROB: like growing clone arms of your own body like just growing other Jason arms and see if we can attach them.

>>KEIRON: If you plot out, you know the most famous I think in Moore's law and you just plot the speed, the processing speed of CPUs, you get an exponential curve
For every 18 months, biomechanical devices double in their capabilities, in how better they are in terms of their enclosed to the human body
Weapons.. that would be an interesting one


>>ROB: Adam has prosthetic legs that are faster, with more endurance and power
Where are we with prosthetic legs today?


I've met with David Jonsson a research and development engineer at Ossur a world leading prosthetic legs company in Iceland.
And this, is Staff Sgt. Heath Calhoun from Tennessee of the USA, who is.. actually pretty quick

Well my name is Heath Calhoun and I guess technically I ski for the USA disabled ski team
I was wounded with the USA army back in November of 2003, kind of led me on the path that I'm on now
>>ROB: These are your prosthetic legs here that you walk around on all the time.
>>HEATH: You have a knee unit, the pylon and then the foot
You got flex in the hill and it split so you get it deflexed on both side
>>ROB: like a ninja slipper.

>>HEATH: The knee is a hydraulic knee unit that has a microprocessor inside of it,
the knee is updated.. the microprocessor is updated 50 times a second by a sensor that's in this pylon that tells the knee whether or not
to add or remove hydraulic resistance

I would really like to see a leg that would do stairs, right now that's just a really big hurdle as above knee plateau that we have to overcome 
You are able to use thigh muscles to be able to push yourself up and we just don't have that

>>ROB: At Ossur prosthetics in Iceland they've developed technology that addresses this problem, the power knee

What's the difference between the power knee and most legs on the market?
>>DAVID: Most legs on the market, the microprocessor wants to use breaking systems and they catch you if you fall, none of them gives you power. So for example, standing up from a chair, sitting position, going up stairs, the power knee assists me in getting closer to a normal walking style.

>>ROB: As somebody who's at a company developing these stuff do you find that technology is moving more quickly as time goes on?
>>DAVID: Yeah, I think technology is moving more quickly now. At the moment it's more a matter of what you can imagine
I mean who says that a normal human like is the optimal thing for you I mean the specie has evolved to dislike what we have now but who says that's the end of the line?

>>HEATH: You're shaking like crazy -do you realize the last time I shot a gun I blew this eye out, right? -quit shaking. -That was close.

>>ROB: Prosthetic arms and legs are beginning to approximate the functionality of our natural limbs
current bionic technology uses external and kinetic sensors
We're only just beginning to experiment with neuroprosthetics like those of Adam Jensen.

Is the technology that Adam Jensen have, possible by the year 2027?
>>JOSEPH: Absolutely, absolutely we will get there. But the real challenge is the brain to machine interface. Every brain is unique and it grows based on your experiences, so where you process a certain piece relatively where I process it, but there is not an exact location

>>MIKKA: Well if you compare any other technical device, cell phones or whatever and then this just the rate of development is so quick, so retinal implants artificial prosthesis will definitely follow the same path.

>>KEIRON: That's an interesting one, I mean choosing to have your limbs removed so you can get a bionic replacement because it's better than the real thing I'm sure there is going to be a lot of ethics debates around whether that is even medically ethical.

>>DAVID: I think technology moves quicker than we imagined and there are small places here and there in the world trying to do stuff that you don't even know about.

>>ROB: Technology is moving so rapidly many theorists are saying we're on the verge of fundamentally changing as human beings in the mean time for those of us missing parts of our bodies, we'll keep exploring and upgrading, it's possible we are the pioneers of a new cybernetic age not unlike the world of Deus Ex Human Revolution