Sure, of course, hover-cars and robot maids and sentient homes would be great. This is a point I would never argue. But if that's all you want from the future, well, I feel bad for you, son. Personally, I'm seeing myself equipped with an awesome bionic arm, all wire-and-metal muscles the size of garbage cans. Perhaps a laser-target eye that can see for miles, while we're at it.

You probably think at this point that I'm either just waxing romantic or that the anticipation of Comic-Con next week is starting to go to my brain, but I really am going somewhere with all this, and that somewhere is that a world full of incredibly hardcore cybernetic limbs is suddenly looking a whole lot more feasible than it might have a few short years ago. This week, Scottish company Touch Bionics released the most sophisticated robotic prosthetic arm to date. It is called the i-Limb, so you know it must be sleek and sexy, and it is apparently the first to boast five fully articulated and independently moving robot fingers. Capable of doing one's every bidding like it was natural, via sensors attached to muscle in the preexisting arm, it suddenly makes everyone holding their brand new iPhone with two normal hands look just a bit more frivolous.

The i-Limb will be unveiled officially on July 29th at the 12th World Congress of the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics in Vancouver, but it's already receiving rave reviews amongst its early adopters, who are suddenly able to do things they never thought possible, like chop vegetables or drink from a styrofoam cup or hold small animals and children without crushing them within a robot death grip. It's like a new lease on life, they say. One can only imagine. In the near future, Touch Bionics plans to develop shoulders, full arms, and individual fingers to fit a whole range of needs. Whether or not any of these will come equipped with casual city-destroying firepower has not yet been announced.

On a somewhat-interesting related side note, it would seem that the fine folks over at NBC are remaking 1970s cheeseball hit show The Bionic Woman, set to premiere this September. It's already managed to rack up some pretty shaky previews, mostly on account of an alleged revolving door of audience-pleasing characters and a hasty addition of that unfortunately mouthy guy from Grey's Anatomy to the cast. I, however, just want to know this: how are they going to make the bionic woman special? There's no concrete news so far on how far they are taking Jaime Sommers 2.0's new equipment, but in the original series she is fitted with advanced hearing, speedy robot legs, and a cybernetic arm that can bend steel. While obviously nothing on the market today can be taken to such physical superlatives, back in the 1970s the very idea of cybernetic limbs was so rooted in science fiction that the show couldn't help but be campy and totally out-there. These days, it's all a whole lot closer to reality. So are they going to up the ante on the character's "improvements," or are they going to play it from the "this could absolutely almost be real" angle? Either way, it feels a piece of pop culture that's little bit unnecessary to revisit these days.

But then again, as I write this with my weak and clumsy hands that have rarely won an arm-wrestling match, perhaps I am just jealous.


_DictionaryGirl_ just referenced Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and The Bionic Woman in one article. Perhaps the anticipation of Comic-Con next week is going to her head more than she previously thought.