> This is an area where hackers can really make an impact. One of my friends has coauthored several papers with some of the BrainGate folks. We spent a road t

> This is an area where hackers can really make an impact. One of my friends has coauthored several papers with some of the BrainGate folks. We spent a road trip a couple years ago discussing his research. One thing that jumped out is how similar many of the tools used in this field are to those in a startup. In particular, many big-data analysis tools and techniques that can be developed, optimized, and funded within the context of the web sphere are applied to the bioengineering problems. A few months ago an article floated around HN on how the current tech bubble, if it's such, lacks a "byproduct" that will benefit society when the scraps are cleaned up. You can make a pretty good argument that it's this.