TRUE BIONIC LIMBS not coming soon.

They were supposed to be better. A decade ago, researchers seemed on the cusp of creating a working interface between body and machine. Even back then, arms controlled by myoelectric signals were old news; more-advanced limbs would read commands directly from the brain. In 2003 scientists at Duke announced that monkeys could control a robotic arm via electrodes implanted in their brains. A year later, a similar device allowed a quadriplegic human patient at Brown University to play Pong with his thoughts. In 2008 researchers at the University of Pittsburgh showed off a monkey that could use a neurally controlled robotic arm to eat marshmallows. Surely if a monkey could use a robot arm to feed itself, it wouldn’t be long before amputees used them to tie their shoes and pilots flew jets with their minds. . . . After $153 million in funding and years of engineering, the best any amputee can get is a heavy, clunky arm that moves slowly, can’t feel anything, and often misreads its user’s intentions.

Faster, please.