Machines Pensantes

Un día, los smartphones, tal como los conocemos, van a desaparecer. El ruido (o vibración) de las notificaciones constantes se convertirá en un recuerdo distante, al igual que ocurrió con los beepers o el sonido de las máquinas de fax en su momento. Al menos es lo que creen diferentes expertos de la industria tecnológica. Algunos apuestan por que eso ocurrirá dentro de una década y otros, un lustro, pero coinciden en que el camino para la eventual sustitución de los teléfonos inteligentes por otro tipo de tecnología está siendo construido por gigantes como Microsoft, Amazon, Elon Musk y Facebook. Se llama realidad aumentada

Pokemon GO isn't the only app that seamlessly blends virtual objects into the real world.

In a very short time, Pokemon GO has pushed augmented reality (AR) into the mainstream. Its ability to overlay digital animations onto the real world using your phone's camera and screen is unlike any other popular game before it. But Pokemon GO isn't the only app that seamlessly blends virtual objects into the real world. Here are the best AR apps not linked with Nintendo.

I've been reading Ramez Naam's fantastic book "Nexus," which is set in a near-future where a powerful nano-drug allows human minds to connect together. In the story, a group of enterprising neuroscientists and engineers discover they can use the drug in a new way — to run a computer operating system inside their brains. Naam's characters telepathically communicate with each other using a mental chat app and even manipulate other people's bodies by gaining control of their brains' operating systems.

Sounds far-fetched, right?

It might not be as far-fetched as you think. From connecting a human brain to a basic tablet to help a paralyzed patient communicate with the outside world to memory-boosting brain implants and a prototype computer chip that runs on live neurons — the real world progress we're seeing today is nearly as strange as fiction.

Below are five stories we've published over the past year tracking the wild experiments and ideas of researchers pushing the boundaries of how human brains interact with machines.