Science & Technology

First ever bionic Olympics to be held in 2016

By T.K. Randall
March 29, 2014 ·  6 comments

The games will accept a wide range of competitors. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 Richard Greenhill and Hugo Elias For the first time athletes with prosthetic or bionic limbs will be given the chance to compete in a special version of the games hosted by the Swiss National Competence Center of Research.

One of the more exotic events at the games will be a competition in which participants will race their virtual selves against one another while hooked up to a direct brain interface in a scenario that borrows more than a few elements from James Cameron's hit movie "Avatar".The technology will allow participants paralyzed from the neck down to take part with medals available both for the athlete and the company who designed the winning system.

"The idea is that we want to push development of assistive technologies towards devices that patients can really use in everyday life," said organizer Prof Robert Riener.

"We allow technology that has previously been excluded from the Paralympics. By making it a public event we want to get rid of the borders between patients, society and the technology community."

Source: BBC News | Comments (6)

Tags: Cybathlon, Olympics, Bionic