Cyberware is a relatively new and unknown field. In science fiction circles, however, it is commonly known to mean the hardware or machine parts implanted in the human body and acting as an interface between the central nervous system and the computers or machinery connected to it. More formally:
Cyberware is technology that attempts to create a working interface between machines/computers and the human nervous system, including (but not limited to) the brain.
Examples of potential cyberware cover a wide range, but current research tends to approach the field from one of two different angles: Interfaces or Prosthetics.
Large university laboratories conduct most of the experiments done in the area of direct neural interfaces. For ethical reasons, the tests are usually performed on animals or slices of brain tissue from donor brains. The mainstream research currently focuses on electrical impulse monitoring, recording and translating the many different electrical signals that the brain transmits. A number of companies are working on what is essentially a "hands-free" mouse or keyboard [Lusted, 1996]. This technology uses these brain signals to control computer functions. These interfaces are sometimes called Brain-Machine Interfaces (BMI).
The more intense research, concerning full in-brain interfaces, is being studied, but is in its infancy. Few can afford the huge cost of such enterprises and those who can find the work slow-going and very far from the ultimate goals. Current research has reached the level where hundreds of tiny electrodes are etched out of silicon, to be inserted into a nerve cluster. Unfortunately, research has not progressed beyond experiments on live tissue cultures.
