Remember when I wrote about the ThoughtPhone? Remember when Crumpet used that as an art project?
The thing is both gadgets and inner space turn me on. Whenever I come across an article about nano-technology, viruses engineered to produce nano-wires, cybernetics, and other such-like things, I read that article - assuming there are bright colors in the accompanying illustrations.
I’m convinced that in the near future there will be an implanted personal media player - a tiny chip somewhere on one’s body that one can control with thoughts - that feeds information directly to the mind. Think of it as the tiniest iPod underneath the skin. Instead of earphones, the device would excite the correct nerve endings to give a person the sensation of listening to a Brandenburg Concerto. Instead of watching a movie, the device would excite a different set of nerve endings giving a person the sensation of watching Raising Arizona. And that person would start, stop, fast forward, and reverse the movie or music with his thoughts.
I know I’m not using the correct terminology, but hopefully you get the idea. It’d be a harmless mini-Matrix that a person could turn on and off at will.*
There is a company that will soon begin marketing a $300 “brain mouse.” According to the blogs, after an hour of using the “brain mouse,” users can decrease reaction speed by 60% in a video game. It works by reading brain activity and eye movement. My ThoughtPhone and iPod Implant will be here soon.
I’ve told Jerry many, many, many times that if I become paralyzed or otherwise bedridden, it will be his duty to keep me up-to-the-minute in music consuming technology. I want an iPod Implant in my comatose body. I want to be fed a steady stream of classical music, electronic music, and music created by whichever manufactured pop icon is popular at the time. You can talk to me while I’m comatose, but more often than not I’ll probably be ignoring you in favor of my iPod Implant.
*I’m not convinced that an immersive, interactive environment is something I would like. I’m cool with only sights and sounds.
crumpet | 05-Mar-08 at 2:26 pm | Permalink
Although I love Red Robot with a passion, I can’t help but compare iPods with the shell-earpiece gadget things used in Fahrenheit 451 occasionally. Gives me chills.
alex | 06-Mar-08 at 8:49 am | Permalink
I don’t know this Red Robot you speak of. Is he friendly?
MagnusFromBerlin | 11-Mar-08 at 2:22 pm | Permalink
1. You’re not getting your media player implanted before I’m getting a decent TV in a watch, I been waiting 27 years for this thing, assuming I read my first Dick Tracy comic with five, because I really don’t recall when that might have been. Look, the technology is ready and has been for some time. Where is my TV-Watch? I don’t want it in a cell phone, I want it in a watch, like you people promised all those years ago. And that the screen is too small to actually seen anything is hardly the point, now is it?
2. I would never inject myself with anything that carries DRM and works as buggy as iTunes, what if that Media Player decides that the licence for my kidneys has run out, because I signed up to donate them after my death and that thing has got the date wrong? I doubt Apple could shrink a submarine fast enough to save me.