visitors make the most then you found freedom, tony ching al jazeera banker. now the 1st attempt had satellite launch from western europe has failed to reach orbit. the company behind the mission blamed an unspecified problem with the rocket. it was deployed over the atlantic ocean from modified, boeing 747 aircraft, which left from a spaceport in southwest england. the rocket had 9 satellites on board. it appears that $1.00 to $1.00 has suffered anomaly, which will prevent us from making orbit for this mission. or we are looking at the information and data that we have gotten. an a quick reminder from catch up with albany was on our website. there it is in your screen al jazeera dot com ah, a quick check of the headlines here now to 017 protest as have been killed in peru in the latest demonstrations demanding the resignation of president dean that follow artie. security forces confronted crowds as they tried to overrun the

airport in southern city of who the ar cut arctic took off his arm, impeachment and arrest of pedro castillo last month on charges of rebellion and conspiracy. police in brazil, i've been clearing out, protest camps in the capitol the day off to an attack on government buildings by supporters of former president j bowles and arrow they refuse to accept his defeat and october's election making unfounded claims that the vote was rigged around 1500 people have been arrested since the riots on sunday. demonstrators of rally been brazilian on south palo in defense of democracy. their calling for those involved in the storming of congress, the presidential palace and supreme court to be jailed. a latin america editor, missio newman was at the rally in south alex. oh, they want those responsible. not only the ideological authors, intellectual office, but the ones who actually carried out the attack on this country 3 institutions to

be put in prison. but also they're asking for president or former president rather bull sonata to also be put in prison and his 3 sons while they're at it. so there is this call for there to be. no, amnesty is, has happened in this country many times in the past that these people pay for their attempt to destroy what they call this country's democracy. yes, president joe biden has pushed for tougher action on illegal migration and drugs in a meeting with his mexican counterpart, the talks in mexico city come ahead of the north american lead of summit never joined by canada's prime minister, just intruder. and the u. s. president has declared a state of emergency in california where tens of millions of people are being warned to prepare for more severe storms. at least 12 people have died during the bad weather. in the past 10 days. pakistan says don't as the pledge $9000000000.00 to help it recover from last year's devastating floods. it's been holding a major conference in geneva with the un to rally support. at least 1700 people

died and molten 2000000 homes were destroyed in the widespread flooding. so those are the headlines. the news continues here now to say are off the screen, stay to events watching buffalo talk to al jazeera. we also do believe that women of august, or somehow abandoned by the international community, we listen, we are paying a huge price for the war against terrorism. what's going on is money we meet with global news makers. i'm talk about the stories that matter on al jazeera. i i, i semi ok. you're going to saw this episode of the stream by meeting eric, sort of, eric received a gunshot wound, which made him paralyzed, meant that he couldn't actually use his arms. and what you're about to see is an implant going into his brain, look away. now, if you don't like the sight of blood,

okay, hope you are fast without one. what the impact will allow him to do is to connect with a robot arm. and so now eric who couldn't use his arms or his hands is now able to access a robot arm which will pick up cups, move things around for him, do what his regular wasn't able to do. for the 1st time, in 13 years, eric could drink a beer, unassisted. so researchers of the university of southern california shared this with you. this is back in 2015. so this is not new technology, but the technology is getting so much better. so in today's episode, what does the future hold for brain implant technology? i know you have questions. i have to answer questions for your questions. your thoughts right here. be part of today's show. ah. hello, curtin. karen and alice ok to have you on board. i'm going to ask you to you very

briefly in 2 lines. introduce yourself to audience and explain your expertise in this a brain implant technology field cut you start. hi tammy, i every one. ah, well i am a curt hagstrom. i'm with a synchron in synchronous, a company that's developing a bring computer interface technology. i'm a biomedical by trade, by vertical engineer, by trade in over a little last 20 years. been delivering class 3 medical devices to the, the neuro vascular market. so i'm excited to be here and have the conversation yet to have you. welcome, carol, please say hello to have you as around the world, tell them who you are. what you day? i am karen ramo finger and i'm a narrow tech assistant strategist, and i am trained as a neuro scientist and ran a narrow ethics institute for awhile. and i've recently found it in there, i think, thinking do tank and run a boutique neurotics consultancy get to have your own voice. hello, hello, welcome to the stream. please green. our view is around the well,

tell them who you are and what you day. hi everyone. my name is anna wexler. i'm a professor of medical ethics at the university of pennsylvania. and i run a research lab that studies the ethical, legal, and social implications. busy advances in neuroscience. all right, so i guess i think the biggest challenge is separating ourself from science, fat and science fiction. we have watch the movies where the side books take over sandy has a brain implant impacting their head and then they go wild at everything goes upside down and it's chaotic. this is not what we're talking about. what we're talking about is brain computer interface or b, c. i, karen, briefly in an accessible way. what does that mean? great. thanks for asking the brain computer interface is really a communication device that connects the brain to an external computer. and there's

2 ways that that communication can happen. so one way is that the computer can fence electrical activity and send that to a prosthetic device. so in the example you gave, someone could drink a beer, who otherwise would be able to, or the device can work the other way, where it can said signals through electrical activity into the brain to help the brain function better. i want to bring in her head cut interesting what you're doing at synchron, which is trying to develop this technology so it can help people who have medical needs, physical needs. i am going to show to people who are chatting and this is video that you shared with us. so tell us what is happening here and why it is special. let's take a look. absolutely. right, so this is a no strayer, what are we seeing? what are we looking at? cut, yes. so this is, this is one of our 1st patients in australia during the switch trial. and these patients are actually able to move the use a digital environment. right now,

you're seeing an interface on the computer. and these actions are all created with the motor intent that they've created when their brain and this is all being signaled with a motor neural prosthetic called the sink on switch system. and so reads that motor intent. it's almost if they had their fingers. so it's the motor intent of being able to touch and move this along the computer screen story with them read the motor intent and then it's communicated out, the infrared technology to a computer. and so the individual right there was so happy to be able to sit there and be able to communicate on that computer for the 1st time and, and tell his wife that he loved her, which was, was ha, from that standpoint. and that instant they are you that before that communication piece. but these technologies go well beyond the think communication, i think, from a utility want to be able to control that digital environment. as you can imagine, that goes to an iphone, we had our 1st patient about a month ago,

control and i phone functionality. and so when you can do that, it goes off just a communication, say with a caregiver, but then you could do online shopping. you could communicate, you know, you could use social media, you can control your smart environment potentially. and so i think there's a lot of utility with what this concept of the motor neuro prosthetic. i mean, i think that's the big changes where it jumps from me, from science fiction, in the, the cyborgs to an actual medical device. and that's where, you know, we're governed by the, you know, the regulatory bodies of the various countries in the f d, a here in the u. s. and so again, we follow the rules of the classroom medical device and, and again we're on a phase of where we were a research phase. now we're in that clinical phase and in the future, the commercial phase of the product. so very excited of seeing where that evolution over the last really 40 years, right? with dca has taken us today. i'm curious about what you're thinking and this is

part of the challenge with brain computer interface. is people worrying about our thoughts being shared quite openly. so when you see some of these experiments, the development, what are you concerned about, or perhaps you're very happy about is going in the right direction. people being very careful. yes, that's a great question. so when it comes to the ethics, you know, there's a few things that i think we should be thinking about and, and 1st, you know, for any medical device or even any drug rate. the 1st, the most basic thing you on establish is safety and efficacy, right? so that's sort of the ground level ethics and you know, these devices, these neuro technologies also raise other really interesting ethical issues such as the one you mentioned privacy, right? so what sorts of data are being captured from the brain? what can they reveal about a person's thoughts and how is that data being protected? you know, and some of these protections may fall under, you know, current medical device regulations and enter hipaa protections at least here in the

u. s. right there, certain protections for medical information, but there's other kinds of information that may not be protected by by laws like hipaa. so i think privacy is a, is a major concern, you know, other concerns or things like the long term safety, right. so what happens when this device is implanted for? ah, you know, a very long time, right? we're talking 203040 years inside an individual's brain and another another talk. what does, what does it feel like? we saw them at the very beginning of the, of the show, eric's brain surgery. what does that feel like? do you know? do we know right now for eric? how was he feeling? how does he describe that feeling? what have you seen, how an an, an ar up when you incur? and i think i wanted to, to share. so the way we experience our world is,

is really filtered through our brain. so anyone who has had a catastrophic injury of the brain or love one to the 6th grade or brain injury knows that your world and the way that you navigate it is altered. so brain technology has this opportunity to really have the transformative therapeutic potential. so if someone like you showed there might have a last or had a stroke, so they can't communicate anymore. now it's enabled a social life that they didn't have before. you know, my area of work used to be parkinson's disease where we have stimulators put in for people to restore movement. and i watched him an operating room as we turned on the stimulator. an individual who had uncontrollable movements be smoothed out with the changes in stimulation with electrical activity. and then there are people who have received that same kind of deep brain stimulation, to alleviate intractable untreatable depression. and their report from patients there who say that actually self report bit claim claim being a sideboard. but at the same time would say that their humanity was actually

restored by having this device. they now can live their life to the fullest and at the at best i think that's what we're a future. we're striving for technologies that can help empower people to live their most, their full list and their best lives. so on youtube, i've got alman and alan is listening to our conversation and describes this as a nightmare. b, c, i's a nightmare and can be highly dangerous, personally. manatee, do you get that instant beer that comes from members of the public? do you understand that? and, and how do you address it? yeah, it's actually from me, i can see the, the, the concern, because i think it's whether it's the, the, the media or even within movies. you know, this is a deep tech net technology in a very, on the forefront of technology. and i think karen karen and explain it very well about some of the concerns and some of the things that we need to continuously look at as far as this technology evolves. but when i look at this application to,

to humans, we're, we're talking about a very specific population and needs of patients that are, are locked in, were considered locked in. they have a last, a very progressive diseases. and this is where they, they had no longer have functions of their, their hands, their feet such as stephen hawkings. and so this gives them that back that independence. so when you have that type of severe paralysis, and there's actually more peace people than you think there's over 5000000, i think that in that severe paralysis around the world. so there's a lot of people out there that i think would like to regain that independence, that individuality be able to commute be able to get back to their daily living, to some degree. and so when i look at that, that's where we're focused. that's what our mission is to help be very patient focused and to ensure we create that independence for that patient. and so i think it's a, we're a very long way from that's being applied to enable body person in here at syncron . again we're, we're our focus, you have to go through that clinical path in the f

d and the regulated path. and so it's very important that there's utility and functionality for, for patients out there. i know that yeah, i think the fear or that it is that instinctual, i thought like, oh my god, right, what's gonna happen? we have b, c, s, i think that comes from this idea of, of a technology being able to potentially read our thoughts. and it's boring to say that we're not there yet. we're not completely reading thoughts at the moment. but you know, i think it's also important to point out that when we think about reading thoughts it's, it's important to think about what can be inferred about us, right? now from other mean, so for example, right on my phone, right, there's location data that people can take. there is my browsing history's g mail, right? google has my e mails and have a whole profile me. so there's so much already based on my digital trail that can be inferred about my private life, and there's currently not good protections for that sort of data. so for me, the fear actually starts there from, from, from everything that's already being gathered about me. and so i,

i wouldn't say that privacy with brand computer interfaces is not a concern. it is a concern, but i think we have to start from all the information that's already being currently gathered about us. some of our viewers are listening to this conversation, watching this conversation and saying, what is this, what anything to do with it on mosque, a newer link, and in a mosque. and new link is, is one private company who are looking into brain computer interface. i'm going to show you part of their life test that they did on november, the 30th. so a little while ago. and what you will see here is a monkey sipping on. i think it's like a banana shake. so that's what's in its monkey's mouth, but he's going to bring an implant in his brain and he is asking for snacks. and then along comes a little tablet and he decides which snack he wants to have. this is, you have to believe all of this is actually happening. so you have to believe the science cuz all i'm seeing is the video. and i, i'm a little skeptical as to the monkey really asking for those snacks. and who's to

say the a monkey doesn't think about snacks every 60 seconds anyway. so i feel that there are issues every that's just because i'm probably a little bit skeptical here. but there's are a point that came from one of our viewers, who wondered about experimentation and experimenting on animals. is that just what happens in this field of science? do you experiment an animals before you go to humans? anna, can you start? sure. so the answer to that is yes, usually experiment on animals before you go to humans and you usually start with small animals and then you, you proceed to mammals. before you get to humans, you have to establish certain, you know, safety and reliability, even in animal studies before you can move to humans. the reports that have come out about animal use at neuro link i would say are concerning. and they're concerning, mostly because of the number of animals. again,

if these reports are correct, that are being used. so the number of animals that were used, i forget the exact number in the reports, but it was far more than it's typically used in a study. another concerning point here is that there are a number of internal reports that were brought up. so there were employee complaints again allegedly about what was going on at neuro link and to employees. according to again, the reports actually left a company because of concerns about how animals were being treated so from you know, from the outside. again, based on the investigative report, it does seem like what was happening at neuro link was actually going a bit further. and i mean that not in a good way a bit further than what's normally done in research company. i'm going to hand and turned back to the important point that and i started with to about the notion of, of mind reading. i mean, not just so the narrative popular merit a narrative of mind reading and even perpetuated. i think for the most kind of,

if i fiction that so pervasive these days around brain uploading and downloading that that just isn't grounded in the reality of the science today. and we're constantly fighting against that, even if that's a desire. it's not where we are. and what is mentioned by kurt and the technology that we have for brain. ready decoding, which is, it is actually a really involved, you asked, what does the patient for experience they experience a lot of effort. they experience a deep relationship with the researcher where they have to learn how you most of us are very lucky and that we can distinct. we want to say something and it comes out without any processing or real effort. these patients have to really concentrate and figure out how to connect that to the technology and then get it to do what they want to. i mean this is this. sometimes it can take years for at least prosthetic devices to, to work. so it's not like there's this one to one, i want to move. i want to talk this thing comes out it's, it's actually quite difficult. so we're really far from being able to do that. and

i do actually, you know, it's a couple of things that i love to make just a couple of comments around, you know, just with, you know, the lawn mosque and i'm not here to comment on a neuro link at all. but what i say in general, and especially how they, they're testing and stuff. but what i say in general, i think competition and more people that are focused on this and developing new technologies is a good thing for patients. i think at the end of the day. so i think that just broadly speaking of our looking at this and, but we obviously have to follow the regulated and the rules of governance of the countries that we reside in and things like that. as far as like how, you know, how close and how reality, i think, how close we are. you know, our technology is, is, again, a very minimally invasive. it's, it's not tethered to anything or a computer or anything. and within a short period of time. so i agree that it's almost like writing it by get the train your body to do something that it's not just a like

a motor intent to rhonda for it was showing animation because some of the things you kind of have to really appreciate it. so we've got and let's tell you this animation and then you can tell us when looking at cuz it really helps. here we go . yes. so this is the, this central device right here that's up in the sinus or the vein up above the motor cortex of the brain. so the neat thing about the this tent road in the synchron switch system is that we navigate up into the brain through the blood vessels. and that allows a very minimally invasive approach to apply this type of pci technology. once that is, once that recording head is in that vein above the motor cortex, we can now read those raw digital signals. motor intense signals. matter fact, you can see the device right here that i'm holding. so it's just like a step like the by how that was in front of your face. cut. yeah. can you see it at all in front of your face? because we see it? yeah, there we go. okay, yeah, yeah. and so this is, it looks like

a stand instance have been used for probably the last 20 years, especially in the coronary space and stuff. so we've bounced the, the technologies that are out there to be able to go through the blood vessel and read the signals from the brain. and again, within a very short period of time, we're talking weeks that the person now has the, you know, there is some training. so we do have that like field engineers to give support to help the training to utilize the system. but it actually comes online within weeks and the patient able to do action using this utility of the system within a short period of time. again, usually within the 1st $3.00 to $6.00 weeks, they're, they're up and running and enable to least do some functionality. and i think that's where learning as we go and they're going to be more functionality. but we're exciting because again, this has real utility for fairly quickly with this technology. i mean, you look like you've got a question, go ahead. yeah, i just wanted to underscore that i should they have no financial relationship with any companies in the space. but what's interesting about syncron right, is that they're, you know, one of the only companies, it's not the only company that's avoiding direct neurosurgery. so i think what

they're, they're doing is, is really unique and they've actually been able to make a lot of progress. and i would say in terms of clinical trials, they're there further along than neural language. maybe have gotten more attention in the, in the media. but they're actually, you know, think runs doing really the work on the ground in the work. so i, and then as the work. interesting, yes. i think that, you know, i think as we near the end of our time, you know, a lot of these technologies that you have to implant, they're going to be happening and very limited situation. swiss a clinician or a researcher, and i think maybe something to be on the radar of viewers are this pro, this proliferation of commercially available wearable headsets and ear pieces that claim to record brain activity. and actually, the quality of most of those technologies is course it's poor. but that really hasn't impacted their sale or deployment. and despite maybe not even accurately

recording from the brain are really being able to derive much information about the brain, their beings, we're seeing them used in schools. we're seeing them being used in workplaces. and we've also heard reasonable concerns from parents and employers or employees who are wondering if there is going to be discrimination based on information that might not even be real. but thought to be real, that can, if i'm right, if i may, let me, let me just share this question me because i've, he was thinking the same thing. so joe says, this technology needs to be highly regulated and it should be done very strictly. is that what you're saying the it's out there and maybe not that great at it's already in schools in an educational institutions. yeah, i think to so right now this is something that and i said to there are some regulations that these kinds of devices that collect biological or biometric information would fall under. but it's these inferences, these, these predictions of about people and how they might behave and how they might

think those are the types of things that aren't really protected yet. and there are a lot of, there's erica inter governmental trans national efforts right now working on looking for those gaps and regulation. but right now it's really up to the, the company and the end user and to, to kind of have the end user needs to have good hygiene, look through their look at what they can about their technology, follow those data policies that they can. some of them are inscrutable, that, that's a problem and for companies to be really looking ahead at the 1st misuse that they might anticipate with their technologies and to try to stay ahead of that. let me just give our audience one more example of what brain computer into facing can look like. and this is from a company called sin attack. and what you see here is a gentleman called tivo. he's in a french trial and he is to has a brain implant which will then in to face with

a suit. which will mean you can see here the extraordinary that debo who can't walk unaided is able to walk. what else is this technology able to do? if we look ahead into the future, what's possible in a sentence, i'm going to go to all 3 of you predict the future ada. what is possible? ah, what's possible? i think i can, you know, a lot faster communication for people who need it. so we're talking about both healthy, you know, both people who need assistive technology so, so individuals are disabled but perhaps even healthy individuals communicating right with the computer. ah, interesting, karen, what is possible in the future in a sentence? i think these irreversible diseases and disorders that we've seen are going to be reversible, like we see walk again. and i also think we're going to see an interconnection for

everybody between brain devices and our internet of things. home with alexa and all that. wow. alexa, in our brain cut was possible not in your brain connected to connected to my rang, thank you for the correction professor ann's cut guide. here, from my perspective, what i see in the future is, you know, thought 1000 people or patients that, that have disabilities. now regaining independence in multiple ways, whether it's smart, you know, controlling smart environments, mobility that was a great technology just showed, are in there, just communicating with loved ones and getting back that functionality in their life. so, and i don't think it's too far off, you know, within the next 10 years, i think we're, we're targeting thousands people being able to utilize systems such as b, c, eyes. so, and we're excited about it. it is such an exciting field of technology and development and brand computer interface technology. i am wondering how much it may cost us and

if it will be available for everybody. but that is a conversation for another day. for now i will say thank you to cut and karen and annette. i knew your excellent questions. we appreciate you the next time take ah, i radical and the founder of african cinema. out just in the world. tell us the story of the more italian director with making the style for that he made a breakthrough into a fighter. his weapons were his mind and his intelligence made him rebel african,

tell me on how she was gonna have is on july last working in asia and africa. there'd be days where i'd be choosing and editing my own stories in a refugee camp with no electricity. and right now we're confronting some of the greatest challenges that humanities ever faced. and i really believe that the only way we can do that is with compassion and generosity and compromise. because that's the only way we can try to solve any of the problem is together. that's why it's so important. we make those connections in depth analysis of the days headlines from around the world. what it did was it to them they have to find because they didn't, they wouldn't get in front assessments. do you think diploma has been done with john? so i'm not very up to about any kind of negotiation informed opinions. everybody tweets, everybody, long tick, tock, tick, tock doesn't bow. you have a bit of

a photo. winter is going to be whole there pretty soon. inside story of al jazeera, the latest news as it breaks this particular sub station. let's bring in 3 separate effects. for 6 russian, we saw with detailed coverage. they had hoped that the us would relax. border pandemic restrictions this week, which would likely have better their odds of getting in from around the world over 3000000 people to talk to the 3 a 4 year then maybe i'm enough. no team ah yeah. 7 a destiny surgeon and it's going to violence and peru as public anger grows against the rest of the former president. last month the.