from popsci.com.au: A group of graduate students in NYU’s Interactive
Telecommunications Program have developed an open-source API that can
allows you to move someone else’s arm remotely using a keyboard, a
joystick or even an iPhone.


Open Limbs,
“a platform for controlling human arms over the internet,” uses
electric pulses to fire the nerves connected to muscles, making them
contract, in conjunction with the Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (WREX), an orthopedic device designed to help people with weak muscles move their arms.


For their demonstration at the ITP annual spring show,
Will Canine, one of the creators, attached electrodes to his arm to
cede control over his nerves to a computer. When someone moved a model
skeleton’s arm nearby, the electrodes caused his muscles to contract and
his arm to mimic the movement of the skeleton. Alternately, the
electrodes were attached to an infrared finger-tracking sensor, so that
Canine’s arm could be moved just by moving a hand up in down in front of
the sensor. 

WATCH THE DEMONSTRATION VIDEO

“We’ve been really interested in non-autonomous body control, so
other people controlling your body,” Canine told Yahoo! News. “Usually
people are really scared of this idea but we think it has some really
interesting implications for people with paralysis or who can’t control
their own bodies.”


 
Right now, the system is only effective at curling forearms and
biceps – legs are too heavy – but the students hope it can be further
developed to help people who can’t move their limbs autonomously.