This, I think, marks the first serious step into cyborg territory - direct mediation between the mind and tools that did not grow with the body housing that mind. One wonders if we've embarked on a course that will move more toward utopia or dystopia? Toward a world in which the limits of the physical body are overcome, or in which significant numbers of people become addicted to implanted brain stimulation, a la Larry Niven's
wireheads - there is in fact at least one actual case, from 1986, of a woman who became addicted to her brain stimulator (originally implanted to control pain):
The Curious Case ...Or will we see the dystopias of
William Gibson, such as
Neuromancer?
One suspects that it will be some convoluted middle course between these two. Still, those of us who pay attention now can truly say that we were there at the very dawn of the age of the cyborgs. Take pictures now, else you'll miss it.