Hacker News Reader

Isn't this in some ways performing better than a normal human heart? A pump with a constantly rotating mechanism seems more suitable to pumping liquid than a contracting bag of meat and muscle.

I'd give it about ten years before athletes get banned from getting a high performance "sport edition" heart.

View on HN

You still need to power it somehow and anything that affects electrical systems might kill you.

In sports your heart is a lot less relevant than your lung capacity. You are more likely to end up with not enough oxygen than your heart not being able to pump your blood fast enough.

Which is another problem, there is a reason your heart doesn't beat at full speed: How well does a pump regulate the blood flow?

One could have a Nike-style sensor in the shoe, connected via bluetooth, with a manual override of some sort. Plus a smartphone-based accelerometer and gyro.

Yes, just replace the brainstem with an ever increasing amount of hardware.

Of course, it will be problematic when you accidentally leave the wireless on your smartphone turned on and kill the battery.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com