Tomorrow Daily 111: Flexible spinal implants, crime scene VR, ultra-detailed CT scans and more

On today's show, a new implant may help paralyzed people walk again. VR is now going to help people solve court cases by getting the jury onto the scene of the crime. Ooh. And GE has a new CT scanner that is showing our insides in crazy good detail. This, all pizza. And disdain. Hm-hm. It's Tomorrow Daily. [MUSIC] Greetings, citizens of the Internet. Welcome to Tomorrow Daily, the best geek talk show in the known universe. I'm your host Ashley Esqueda. Joining me as always, punching sky, the man, it's the legend, Khail Anonymous. Yeah. I'm, I'm here. I'm the, sort of the inside web VR. You got a haircut. Fell off. It's a, It's a, threat it's like every six weeks your hair just sheds into a new cut. Oh you know, that's nice. Yeah, so, so, it saves on money. But yeah, it's too short, but it makes it so it takes the video a lot less time to unload. So, you, you cut it off [INAUDIBLE] it quick. So very welcome. Yeah, we have a lot of really cool stuff today, stuff that. Super, dooper interested in. So, let's not waste any more time. Let's hit the headlines. [MUSIC] Okay, I'm gonna try really hard not to butcher this name, because it's long, and it's not American. So, researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. That was pretty good. I feel like I got kinda close there. Yep, you did it a little bit Mexican, but yeah, sure. Okay. so, a year. About a year ago they showed off this system that allowed totally paralyzed rats to walk again. And so, now they have a new flexible version of that implant. That is designed to integrate with a human patient's. Spinal cord. Oh that's fantastic. Okay, so check this out. This is crazy. And so that's the implant. It's totally flexible, it's stretchy, it's implanted directly onto onto the spinal cord so, and it, these are completely paralyzed rats that were able to walk again, which is. Insane. This is straight up future tech, you guys. It uses electrodes to convey current to the spinal cord, so it tells, tells it where to move. There's there's more to it than that. If you want to see the details you can ju, jump over to CNET.com. There's a whole description of how this works. I don't wanna, I don't wanna get too deep into it because I am obviously not a doctor. But it's really, really awesome because, because of the fact that it's flexible and stretchy. It actually, there is a lot less chance of it rejecting, like your body rejecting it. And also. [INAUDIBLE] And also, it lasts longer because it's not, it, it can kinda roll with the punches. It's not getting, you know, totally abrasive. It's not taking a beating like another implant would. So, it can kind of roll with the movement of your spine, which is pretty amazing. And they were saying in these rats, that they implanted these flexible implants in the rats, and it lasted for two months, which is a really long time. And they said that there wasn't really any degradation. So, now they're saying, human trials could start as soon as June. So people could start walking again. So potentially, we might start seeing completely paralysed people have the ability to walk again. okay. Pretty amazing. Yeah it is pretty "just amazing". I had, I be like, we've use the word amazing a lot on the show. But this is actually amazing. And there's. Like I said, there's really good details over on c|net. And then also, I have to say this because I was really impressed with the comment section of this article over on c|net. A lot of people were kind of arguing the merit of If you were paralyzed would you rather have an exo suit that, that, was able to move regularly, like a robot exo suit, those robotic exo suits that allow you to lift more? Or would you rather just have a surgery? And so they were going back and forth about well, I guess if you have the implants taking, doing something like taking a shower or washing your face should be much easier than having a robot exo suit. Oh, okay. But. Very good. Having an exosuit would make other activities much easier as opposed to just having the ability to just walk. Like you would be able to do more things. Yeah. So I thought this was really conversation, and I, I was super-impressed by the comments. I'm not often impressed by Internet comments. This was an occasion where I was. And I, I have to, I had to give the Internet credit for that because it was a very good conversation. Internet loves exosuits. Yeah, they do love [UNKNOWN], but they were also, like it was a really interesting, kind of, back and forth about, like, well would you rather have [CROSSTALK] I think his exo suit would just kind of be lumbering. No matter if you're like sitting in a restaurant. He is huge. Or like walking through a crowd. It's, it's huge. I'm sure it's cool to be able to like lift stuff, but. But like lifting your groceries and things. I mean, you would probably need something. I think that they would be very complimentary to each other. So you'd have both. Mm. So basically you would use this flexible implant to just walk. Go, go have a meal, you know, do, do things that normal people do, but if you want to do something more, like lift something or build something then, then you would use an exosuit. Mm-hm. So I, stupid fascinating. I mean, but that's just humanity. Yeah. Humanity could just use some exosuits. I think most people just wanna be normal. Yeah, yeah. Super, I, I agree. And so, I just, this was- That's my opinion, what's yours? Absolutely incredible, just super, super awesome. But yeah I just thought it was really fascinating and. From there, we will move on to the land of virtual reality. Okay, story number two. Love this. Okay, story number is, is great because this is totally that, sort of, like, wait, how are we gonna use VR in the future that's not just people playing video games? Yeah. Well, this one, they wanna use it to help understand and solve crimes in the courtroom. So- I like it. Basically, what this technology is doing, what they're using these VR headsets, what they wanna use them for. It's, they wanna strap a VR headset onto a juror, and put them at the scene of the crime. Love that. It's great, because now, you know, the lawyer doesn't have to explain. Explain everything in excruciating detail. Some jurors can't necessarily wrap their head around it. Because you know, they don't necessarily know crime. Yeah. And I'm sure it could be disturbing for some people to see the, the pictures from the scene of the crime like that's really upsetting to people. Yeah, well there's a lot of work arounds for that sort of thing. Such as, you know, they can kind of not show everything graphically. Also we don't know. Yeah. Committed the crime or what, so they kind of, every single person that is a person in this has like no defining features. Okay. They're just kind of like a, not a blob- Like the, well, like the- But they're human-shaped. Yeah, like the, like the sign on the bathroom. Yeah. [LAUGH] Like, there a head and there's like a little body. Just a little skirt. And that's it. That's, you know. Yeah, I got it. Okay. But another thing that they're hoping that this will solve is like. Having explained, bullet trajectory, like where the locations of where people were. Yeah. Because like drawing a picture or whatever, but virtual reality really putting in there, letting them walk around the scene of the crime. Kind of explaining it to them. I would imagine even like cross examination would also be really helpful if they put it on a police officer. Change stuff around. Say is this what you saw, what did you. See, oh I saw this here, I saw this here, that's really interesting and that's a really good use of They're calling it the forensic holodeck. It, it sounds really fantastic. Forensic holodeck. Obviously, they're gonna have to jump through a lot of hoops to get this started and used in actual, like It's tough to use things as evidence in a trial so Oh yeah. So it's. There are going to be a lot of lawyers who are going to be like, well wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Objection. Your honor. To this one tiny, tiny thing to defend their case. It's all, like, it's, it's gonna be really rough. Overruled. But I'm sure. It's great. Let's [INAUDIBLE] it. I'm sure, I'm sure, for whatever crime that I commit, that almost puts me in jail, they'll be using this. [LAUGH] When the precogs. Totally [CROSSTALK]. come to get you. Yeah. For some future murder that you're gonna commit, we're gonna use this. But for [CROSSTALK]. And we're gonna, we're gonna totally. Get you, we're gonna, get you acquitted. Don't do a precogs, but this is totally a great, a great, conversation point. Yeah. When you're talking about VR. You could talk about games, you could talk about this solving crimes, medical stuff. Yeah. We talked earlier. Therapy. On an ear, we talked on our earlier episode about how people would rea, do you remember that one, it was like way way early, how people. Where the shooter? Yeah, the shooter. Yeah, where it was like. Explain that one. You could, you could so they had a thing where there was a shooter. And he would come into an art gallery in virtual reality and you had 2 choices, you could either let him go to the top floor, where he killed like 5 people, or the bottom floor where he killed one person, and also you, or something like that, where you had a choice between how many people he kills and only very few people. A lot of people like, a couple people had the elevator like, stopped midway. Mm-hm. And they, that was like they're there, oh, we can't kill anybody now. Oh. Okay, that's pretty, pretty smart. They kinda cheated the system, Kobayashi Maru, like it's a non-winnable situation. Okay. But it was really interesting, it was sort of a psychological experiment, but. Things like that like I think even, even they're. They're doing things with VR for therapy as well. Oh, yeah. So, virtual reality. Yeah. To, to help people with mental health issues. Which I think is fantastic. And maybe somebody can't go somewhere because their, you know? Their, their legs don't work and they haven't gotten that. Technology from earlier. [CROSSTALK] They haven't gotten that implant yet. No, and then they could, I was just talking talking on the radio to somebody about about how amazing it'll be for somebody to be able to just pay, like, six bucks, and take a, take a scuba diving tour. Maybe you're afraid of open water. hm. I am. Take a scuba diving tour of The Great Barrier Reef without having to ever get in the ocean. And, like, that kinda stuff is I hate getting wet. The best part of virtual reality for me. So there you go. Obviously yeah, the footage, Forensic holiday. Check, check out the footage. It looks. It looks a little weird. It doesn't look like you're on the set of CSI. But I, but I like that because it, like you said, it it it's one of those things where it can remove a juror emotionally and they could just look at it and say okay here's the scene of a crime, like this is what they say happened. Here's the bullet trajectories, whatever. Like, gun crimes I would imagine this would be really good for. Mm-hm. But yeah no. I really like this, this tech. it's pretty awesome. Okay so. Another piece of future tech, which is actually here and exists, and, and is working right now at a hospital. This is crazy. I love the human body. I think it's so cool. Nice. I like to look at all these different, you know, anatomy books and stuff, awesome. Oh yeah. So, GE, has this new revolution CT scanner and they released- well, it was, actually, last week they released these animated GIFs and they are super impressive. Yeah. And now, not only does the revolution CT scanner, have the ability to capture things we are normally able to see in CT scans like- organs, bones, muscles that, it can poll vascular flow, organ motion, soft tissue, and obviously and in incredible detail. So here's the thing about this scanner that makes it so cool. It reduces radiation levels by 82% based on, compared to traditional methods. So, traditional C-scans, like way lower radiation. It uses a kind of image, image stabilization technology to correct for patient movement. So, one of the things that people also complain about when they get CT scans are. You literally have to sit like a hot dog in a tube. And like, you can't move, you can't breathe, you can't do anything. And it's, and it's like an hour. It's a long time. Mm-hm. And so now, they're saying they're able to capture in one second, your entire pelvis and abdominal area and it has this image stabilization which makes it. Really easy for her to read and it's super clear. And less radiation. And a lot less radiation, so you don't have to drink your drink your neutral colas. Less rads for everyone. Yeah, less rads. Less rads for everyone. Apparently this thing has been in trial for a couple of years now and it was at this hospital in Florida and they liked it so much that in September of last year, they bought it. They were just like, well we'll just keep it here. We'll just buy it. Who did? This hospital in Florida. Oh, okay. They'd been using for trials, and they liked it so much they told G.E. you know what? Just, yeah, we don't want you to take it away. We'll just buy it from you. Like we'll just, how much? Like they just asked how much. But it's pretty cool and this is sort of a, a really good glimpse into, you know, how we can move forward in terms of medical technology. Yeah. Like surgeries and stuff. Like,. Sometimes with CT scans especially with something like the heart, it's very very difficult to capture because it's constantly moving. We can't stop your heart in the middle of a CT scan just to take a good look at it. So, this image stabilization supposedly will really help with things like that. You're big on health tech today. Yeah, kind of big on health tech today, but I really like that. How about those crimes? Yes, Khail's all about crime. Mm-hm. Love crime. So and on that note we're actually, I gotta tell you what the hash tag of the day is before we go on break. The hash tag of the day is TDHolodeck. And I know we've mentioned the holodeck before, but here, this is a different question. This is a, this is a life or death situation. So if you had to live in a simulation, in a virtual reality simulation for the rest of your life,. To live out the rest of your days in a VR simulation, what would it be? What would yours be? I feel like it'd be The Sims. You'd just live, virtual, virtual life? Like normal life? Like virtual, that's meta. Is that super boring? Kind of, yeah, it's kind of- - It's kind of boring but I feel like I would like it. It's kind of weird. I, I think I was talking to Logan about this earlier. I think I'd live in Just Cause. Do you know the game Just Cause 2? No. You like basically grapple this stuff. You're basically flying around and shooting right, it's like being Spiderman. Okay. But you blow stuff up. Oh. And, yeah. Good. That's what I'm gonna do. For your whole life you'd want to live that? Your whole life? Oh yeah. Okay. I've always wa, I've always wanted a crazy unrealistic grapple to just shoot everywhere. Why walk or drive? That's a quote. Quote for the ages, I've always wanted a crazy unrealistic grapple. I wanted a crazy, crazy futuristic grapple. Some sort of hover, hover vehicle, either board or that. Ya. Or, a jet pack. Those are the things that I want. Is, is that too much to ask? It is. So far. Future. It kind of is. But maybe in, maybe after we come back from break it won't be too much to ask. We'll be right back. You've got to check out this video before we go, right before we jump into break. This guy got this drone, right, for the holidays or whatever and on his first trip out, it was about to crash into a lake. So, check this out. [MUSIC] Welcome back to the show. We are, we've returned. Still, I'm sorry, no no hover boards, no. I wonder if that guy who caught the drone, like, maybe had a phone in his pocket. He just dove into the water. Like, what if he ruined his cell phone? He can just put notes on the drone and send it to people if he wants to talk to them. So he doesn't need a cell phone. Fair enough. [INAUDIBLE] That's gonna be the new carrier pigeon, you guys. That's sad. That's terrible. So it's Tuesday. And we didn't get to do it last week because we were at CES. So it's been, it's been a while. It's been about three weeks, I think? Yeah. So it is time for New Releases. [MUSIC] So January tends to be a pretty light month. Not Yep. In terms of releases, but there's some That's okay, because of the Oscar stuff, you know Yeah, yeah. They got the big movies and big movies already came out. There's some good stuff coming out. I mean, things that are interesting. Things you might want to see. Yeah, good stuff. First up, if you have an XBox One, Evolve opened betas this weekend. Okay, that is good stuff. That is pretty good. All right. It is an op, it's an open beta, so it's not the game. But if your so inclined, it looks really, really good,. They only have one level on the first, the, the alpha, right? I think so. Do we know if they have any more on this one? You know what, I'm not sure. Okay. I'll have to, I, I have an X-Box one so I was kind of thinking I was gonna try to get into it this weekend but There was no matchmaking, that was a huge issue in the A lot of people complained about that Well there was, there was matchmaking but you couldn't. Couldn't match up with your friends, and that was [CROSSTALK] you get to play with a bunch of, like, jerks. Those were random. [INAUDIBLE] guy. Yeah, so hopefully they fix that so you can actually make a cool, you know, But, you know, it's cool in looks. So you're, so also if you're worried about that, even check out livestreams for this now. So you can watch more of this. Yeah, and now that it's in open beta you can actually watch on Twitch, like people can actually broadcast it, which is pretty cool. I. I rock the house as any of this, like, you know, the four people, but I- Rock the house Am terrible at the monster. Terrible at the mon, okay. Super duper bad at the mon, like I'm sitting in the corner just, like, reading a book, I'm like. Loop, de loo. Loop, de doo, I'm a monster. Dah, dah, dah, so, there you go. I like that. And then we also have a couple movies coming up between Blackhat, starring" People's Sexiest Man Alive" Chris Hemsworth, which comes out He's not my people's sexiest man alive. Well, you know, he's the mini van majority really likes him. Maybe a mountain they love their Chris, they love their Thor. Yeah. I mean, let's just put it that way. I like Thor. I mean I'm, I'm into it. Mm-hm. A little bit. I like it. I like it better with a beard. Yeah. He looks like he'd hug you and it would crush all your bones. But anyway. Yeah. Blackhat is about so Hemsworth is. Cyber crime. Yeah, a hacker. He's a hacker. A beautiful hacker. And obviously a great depiction of what normal hackers look like. I mean, clearly I see guys that look like this every day. What is he trying to hack with? What's the whole, what's the pitch? Well it's a, it's a very exciting Michael Mann movie. it's. Yeah. All over the shop. I'm sure there's going to be many, as we're even just seeing the trailer. Lots of different locations, and lots of different, you know, nice lady. There's a nice lady, a potential love interest. What is the, but what is at stake? I don't know what the stakes are, it looks like, you know, global cyber crime. Crazy, I think it's nuke. Is it nuke? It's gotta be nuke. It's probably nuke. And then another, on the opposite end of the spectrum going analog,. American. Winnie the Pooh. Oh. Not Paddington. That is coming out this weekend though. American Sniper is coming out this weekend. okay. So here's the thing. This trailer is intense. Like, I my heart was racing when I was watching it. And. A really obviously uncomfortable subject matter for a lot of people, but just the intensity of the trailers like, made me extremely nervous. I don't know that I'm gonna go see this in theaters, but. It's Rocket Racoon as a sniper. It's sort of cool. Yeah, like, it's just Rocket Racoon. He's turned into a human, a human boy and grew up to be a sniper. I've heard mixed reviews on this honestly. Have you really? Yeah. I have heard, I have heard. [INAUDIBLE] as well. I'm not sure that I'm going to go see this in theaters, but I figured I would let people know it's coming out this weekend. Yeah, absolutely. Just in case they're really into this, or they want to go see this story, it's based on a true story. Hey, if you're not interested in that, why don't you catch up on some of the, Golden Globe Winners. Yeah. Or some of the Oscars, things that are going to be nominated. This weekend. You've got lots of options. Me, Logan and I are all about Whiplash. I'm still, yeah. Birdman is pretty good too. Birdman, oh, see Birdman. Oh, my God. I still think the one that's gonna- Grand Budapest Hotel is no HBO right now, you can watch that. Oh, yeah, Grand Budapust, pest Hotel. Beautiful. Won best. The comedy, or musical motion picture this weekend. Best Wes, Wes Anderson film that [LAUGH] Oh. Kooky, kooky Wes Anderson Listen, I love that movie so much. Yeah. It's so whimsical and adorable, and the best really. Or, or the actual movie that's gonna take home best picture. Lego movie. Yeah, The Lego Movie, totally. So that's what's coming out this week. A lot of good stuff. I, I mean, I think pretty good stuff, if you're interested. If you're still inclined. Evolved looks pretty good, check out The Twitch. [CROSSTALK] Oh yeah, if you're, if you're getting in. If you don't get in to the beta check out Twitch. But it's the Xbox One. Remember, it's Xbox One. It's on the iPhone. It's now time for your user feedback. [MUSIC] You guys have a lot to say about what your favorite non traditional show of 2014 was. Mm-hm. I saw someone said Black Mirror but I'm sure you disqualified them. No no, so the #TDglobes rawdeadfish said my 2014 fave is absolutely Black Mirror. Whoo. But I also really enjoyed High Maintenance on Vimeo. Which I haven't seen. I gotta check that out. I like, I like asking these questions cause I find out about things that I didn't know existed. You know what I mean? Gale? You alive? You dead? Okay. We're gonna, we're gonna keep going. Danny wrote to us and said too many cooks. Too many cooks. Too many cooks. [LAUGH] yeah. So I, so I like that. I think it counts. I think a hundred per. Let's say and it lasts. That's our audience for ya. It really is. Can John and pretty much the rest of the internet responded. House of cards! That's with an exclamation point. yeah. That was, that was it. So, a lot of you guys love House of Cards. I love pretending that I've seen House of Cards. [CROSSTALK] Do you? It's a great show. An amazing. [CROSSTALK] It really is. Hypothetically, it's a great show. From beginning to end. Totally a show. Yeah, it's a, it's a show. Hm-hm. And Kevin Spacey's [CROSSTALK]. And that one part where he's, he's gambling and he loses it all. Yeah. House of Cards is awesome. Yeah, totally,. And then, Black Hive Media wrote to us and said, JonTron. Oh, yeah. JonTron. Tomorrow Daily, and all failed compilations of 2014. And like we fit in with failed compilations. Well, I think that's sort or redundant, honestly. Like we're, we are a failed compilation. To me, it's like JonTron, and I. Oh yeah, Game of Thrones. She's not in Game of Thrones anymore. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So I felt those were really good, I, I, I really appreciate it and so many of you guys [INAUDIBLE] it was kind of adorable. There, it was, it warmed my heart, heart a little bit. [CROSSTALK] You could see it on the, this GECT scanner how warm my heart was. It was just like whoa your heart is so warm. It's like a campfire just. Rub your hand, get warm by my heart. Did they say another scene that shows, or only Tomorrow Daily? No, only Tomorrow Daily, deal with it. This just hit, wait. Every other scene that show is cancelled. Every other scene that show, now, hey, sucks- No, wait, they're all changed to Tomorrow Daily. No, no they're still alive. Going forward, everyone's going to host Tomorrow Daily. So now it's time for our very final piece of user feedback, which is always our Phonetographer of the Day. [MUSIC] Again, I hope I pronounce this right, Atiqul. Does that look right? Atiqul? He says, here's a picture I took with my Nexus 5 while walking by the canal with my wife at Mile End Park in East London U.K.. And then Google autoawesomedip. I know there's no such word in the dictionary. Awesomed, auto awesomed? [LAUGH] Oh, no. It's a word in our dictionary. Awe, you, you, it's past tense of you, you. I had awesomes. Now I'm not so awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah,. Many thanks, kindest regards, Atiqul. Atiqul, that is a delightful picture. Also, stop looking at me, swan. No? Stop looking at me, swan. Yeah. Stop looking at me, swan. Sloppy Joes,. I really hate that London's not pictured in that. Then this. I, well it is. That's just a part of London that doesn't, you can mistake it for not London is all I'm saying. Right. That actually could have been taken anywhere really. In the studio. Actually, we took it right where Price Is Right shoots. There's a little canal there. But even though it wasn't, I can't see London in it, it's still my favorite viewer. Well you love swans, obviously. I love swans. They are Kale's favorite animal so just keep that in mind. Mm-hm. I consider myself a swan in that. I swim in lake A black swan and that he does ballet And just poo freely where I'm at. All of those things. If you guys wanna have your picture considered for phonetographer of the day, you can e-mail us tomorrow at CNET.com. You can also, of course, send over your user feedback if you wanna send your hashtag today, your more than welcome to do that if you hate e-mail. We got you covered. We're on social media @TomorrowDaily on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TomorrowDailyTV on Google, Google Plus. And we have a, we even have a Tomorrow Daily Tumblr. TomorrowDaily. Tumblr.com. Yeah? It hasn't gotten taken down yet? fortunately, we have not yet been hit with any any take down notices. [LAUGH] Oh, we'll get there, that. So, fingers crossed, guys. Fingers crossed. And, also, if you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to subscribe, like. Boink, subscribe. And then I don't know what else. Favorite Thumbs up! Thumbs up! And you can also find us on iTunes Rate and Review, and if you do review, put just one hype. Let's see if we can just, like, freak anyone out that, like, it's Martians going look at the swans. Yeah, just talk all about swans in your review. Make it seem that Tomorrow Daily is a show entirely about swans. Yeah. Tell them the hosts of the show are swans. Yeah, tell them that we had wrong swans. Yeah, that would be amazing. Cuz, yeah, Parks and Rec hype as well. And we eat Swanson TV Dinners. No, you gotta stop. No, no, I'm gonna go there. So that's it for the show, you can find me on Twitter @AshleyEsqueda. Calanonymous, on Twitter. Pretty much all over the internet, and, we'll be back tomorrow with a brand new docket of weird, bizarre, awesome future tech, and. And lots of Swan! And no swans, so I don't think there'll be any swans on tomorrow's show. But it's Swan Wednesday. Wednesday?.> End the show. Alright, we're done now Okay. Alright guys until tomorrow. Be good humans until the next time, bye!