It’s a good news day for fans of brain-machine interface technologies. Not only are DARPA funding a project to use machines to boost the speed at which operators can scan visual images (which will probably come as a great relief to the people employed to vet the photos uploaded to social network sites), but the full details of the systems that allow a man who is paralysed from the neck down to interact with his computer (and meatspace, via a robotic arm) have been published in the journal Nature. So, when do I get my datajack?