The Illustrated Man
I was thinking about sticking a computer somewhere in my body. Wait, that sounds bad. What I mean is that it would be nice to have embedded computers, as long as they weren't running Windows XP anyway (wouldn't that bring a new meaning to the words "Blue Screen of Death."?) By using WiFi, Bluetooth or something similar, the gizmos could be easily programmed and interrogated remotely.
Implanted computers could regulate medicine, like the pumps that are in use today. All of us could have little medical devices inserted into our arms that would dole out meds precisely and at the same time constantly monitor temperature, blood pressure and possibly scan the blood for sugar and cholesterol.
I'd love a couple of k of RAM that I could access in my head as a scratchpad. It would be perfect for storing phone numbers and to-do lists, because I can never remember any of that. Of course if somebody figures out how to do the chip-brain interface thing, each of us could turn into a digital camera, couldn't we? What would that do to privacy? What about going to a concert and walking out with a perfect recording in our head that could be uploaded and shared. I can't wait to see the lawsuit over that.
There's always that basic human need of ornamentation. We could plant wire matrices, little plasma screens or maybe conductive nanobots under our skin and via a control interface, turn in to a walking advertisement or a mood ring or something.
Posted on June 26, 2006
