DescentBB

A group of us nerds were talking about what the future of portable media and office applications might hold. And of course we started mentioning devices we've seen in flicks. We quickly ruled out stuff from starwars, startrek, back to the future, and a few others. Then we started saying how dead on Ghost in the Shell was on how we'd see holograms (which would be images produced in your eyes rather than in the air around you) but the medical nerd said we'd have to take special pills so our anti bodies wouldn't reject the the computer parts. Is that the only thing keeping us from having computer stuff installed in our bodies? I would Sooo buy a creative labs, FistofRock 80GB.

Now, I'm an admitted Battlestar geek, but much of the technology from that show is pretty believable.

The interface in Minority Report is starting to come true with some of Microsoft's efforts. I also read how they've been able to get lasers to heat air molecules to incandescence and produce simple images, so that kind of mid-air hologram is not impossible. Perhaps cars will come with HUDs that let you select which driver you want to deliver a message to. I'm waiting to see who can embed organic LEDs and circuitry into the skin to produce a built-in wristwatch. Or how about a in-hand phone, which lights up with the calling number and touch-responsive buttons, and picks up when you retract your middle 3 fingers and hold your thumb to your ear? Although I suppose if they can do that, they could just put the speaker in your ear or auditory nerve, and the mic in your nose or lip.

And oh yeah, if you can believe artificial gravity, anti-radiation medkits, and faster-than-light travel, B*G looks quite realistic.

Do you really think a lot of people would want equipment permanently grafted into their skin? Especially if it became obsolete a couple years later...

Sirius wrote:Do you really think a lot of people would want equipment permanently grafted into their skin? Especially if it became obsolete a couple years later...

I'd have "try me" tattoo that if pushed, would play an 5 second 8-bit recording of "Rockin around the Christmas tree."

Sirius wrote:Do you really think a lot of people would want equipment permanently grafted into their skin? Especially if it became obsolete a couple years later...

Hmmm...good point. Perhaps when upgradable firmware reached its limit, the user could ingest a pill containing nanobots to disassemble the application and direct its debris toward our excretory system?

What exactly keeps you from installing a robot arm? is it really just the body rejecting it?

The lack of desire to remove a functioning organic one?

Anything you put into your body may be rejected. Metal is especially bad for this. But you can also have live organs rejected.

It's a hit n miss.

ROFL....best DBB comeback evvvvva Testi.

Testiculese wrote:The lack of desire to remove a functioning organic one?

Come to think of it, I bet it would be easier replacing a healthy body part than a damaged one.

Nope

CDN_Merlin wrote:Anything you put into your body may be rejected. Metal is especially bad for this. But you can also have live organs rejected.

Only certain metals are rejected. Gold is one metal that is not rejected.

Ferno wrote:

CDN_Merlin wrote:Anything you put into your body may be rejected. Metal is especially bad for this. But you can also have live organs rejected.

Only certain metals are rejected. Gold is one metal that is not rejected.

Titanium would be another, my brother has a couple titanium plates and bolts in his arm.

I have a Titanium rod in my leg, it's inside the bone. I can pick up Radio Brazil on it.

WillyP wrote:I have a Titanium rod in my leg, it's inside the bone. I can pick up Radio Brazil on it.

I've got two new titanium screws in my wrist. ... I can only get mariachi music from Baha.

Thing from si-fi movies are not an imposable thing, just recently I saw a ad for a keyboard, the musical kind, that is flat and can be rolled up. It is also filly function able.

Actually most realistic sci-fi (anime) ever award would probably go to Planetes.

Krom wrote: Titanium would be another, my brother has a couple titanium plates and bolts in his arm.

right. I knew there was another one. just couldn't recall it at the time.

Sirius wrote:Do you really think a lot of people would want equipment permanently grafted into their skin? Especially if it became obsolete a couple years later...

By the time it is feasible, it would be obsolete within 6 months. Besides, we very well might find a way to "plug in" mentally without having to literally plug anything, like something that sends magnetic pulses through the skin to alter brain waves or something.

Whatever we do though, McDonalds will be the 1st to implant advertisements directly into our brain, guarenteed.

Blue wrote:

Sirius wrote:Do you really think a lot of people would want equipment permanently grafted into their skin? Especially if it became obsolete a couple years later...

By the time it is feasible, it would be obsolete within 6 months. Besides, we very well might find a way to "plug in" mentally without having to literally plug anything, like something that sends magnetic pulses through the skin to alter brain waves or something.

Whatever we do though, McDonalds will be the 1st to implant advertisements directly into our brain, guarenteed.

I love the positive mood in the room towards these implants....

here's a good one: has anyone seen that special where scientists take someone who's been blind since birth and get him to see shapes using cameras surgically connected to his...ugh.. that part behind the eye?

In this they predicted they could someday match or surpass normal eyesight. How could you not get this? And what else could these eyes show you other than the world around you? Would life have a hud like a 3d shooter?

You can get a pair of glasses that will give you a HUD. Nifty stuff. I don't know if I want to be the six million dollar man just because tho'.

That is a good point, Isaac, although I would still have second thoughts about replacing perfectly functioning organs. If they started to fail, though, then by all means. Apart from that, as long as society didn't require cybernetic enhancements I think only the radical would actually get them if they didn't need them.

(Heaven help us if it did... plugging bits and pieces into every person ever born seems a little extreme... though by that point perhaps genetic engineering would be a more likely alternative. Well, not that anyone would ever take that either. Yeah, public perception is an interesting thing.)

Sirius wrote:That is a good point, Isaac, although I would still have second thoughts about replacing perfectly functioning organs. If they started to fail, though, then by all means. Apart from that, as long as society didn't require cybernetic enhancements I think only the radical would actually get them if they didn't need them.

(Heaven help us if it did... plugging bits and pieces into every person ever born seems a little extreme... though by that point perhaps genetic engineering would be a more likely alternative. Well, not that anyone would ever take that either. Yeah, public perception is an interesting thing.)

Ghost in the Shell is a bit different from this, the main characters don't just have cybernetic implants, but have entirely cybernetic bodies. The only part of them that is still biological is the brain, everything else is a machine, any further and they would cease to be cyborgs and start to be androids. One episode has a character that sold all of his organs for profit, and only has his brain remaining inside a small square box with four legs and two arms. Rather chatty character at that.

Although that brings up the question; he sold everything? . . .

No in ghost in the shell, you'll remember that there are all kinds of people who have different levels of implants. The cops in that show however are mostly robotic, but there were plenty of characters that weren't. In fact there was one scene where they showed how a politician was hacked by demonstrating how his eyes couldn't read barcode.

Once your eyes have an OS installed that run on your own body energy, life will change in exciting ways.

Your finger tips could have sensors in them so you could type in mid air and move windows only you can see. This would lead to window vision sharing between people, where the x,y,z coordinates of a window that you're holding (+content) would be sent to people around you. So if joe was holding an MS word file Sarah would see joe holding the same window and might even be able to take the window from him.
In fact i bet this is how cellphones die in the next 10 years, from people just using the voice chat on an IM.

edit:
Night vision would prob also become a standard feature.

Sirius wrote:(Heaven help us if it did... plugging bits and pieces into every person ever born seems a little extreme... though by that point perhaps genetic engineering would be a more likely alternative. Well, not that anyone would ever take that either. Yeah, public perception is an interesting thing.)

Public perception is irrelevant. The government is field testing ID chips that will be implanted at birth.

Not sure how they plan to get away with that.

Sirius wrote:Not sure how they plan to get away with that.

Another 9/11 and scare us into thinking we NEED it.

probably will go like...


"With terrorists all over our fair country, not even a driver's licence is enough to tell Osama from the Average joe, for the safety of the american people, we're going to be implementing a freedom ID system that will mark every american born child as an american citizen."

Freedom ID, i just coined that.. i should copyright before they use it.

Sirius wrote:Not sure how they plan to get away with that.

Same way you pay income taxes and have a SSN.

If the government wasn't involved, some forms of chipping would be really great from a technology, convenience and personal standpoint. I can think of hundreds of good applications.

Testiculese wrote:

Sirius wrote:Not sure how they plan to get away with that.

Same way you pay income taxes and have a SSN.

If the government wasn't involved, some forms of chipping would be really great from a technology, convenience and personal standpoint. I can think of hundreds of good applications.

x2.
What if this could be a way of buying things? One chip dose it all: id, debit, medical history, gps (missing people number will go down), and possibly heart rate sensor (could call 911 automatically).

Sirius wrote:Not sure how they plan to get away with that.

Not the govt, but I have seen ads for parents to get tracking chips placed in their children in case they are kidnapped. But then kidnapping would not be the only thing a parent could track.

I see the Ghost in the Shell premise of biological brains in cybernetic machines as almost inevitable for three reasons.

First, man-machine interfaces are becoming more entwined every day. The idea of planting a tracking chip in a person, or controlling a computer by waving our hands, are not far fetched.

Second, people generally wish to live longer. What prevents us from doing so? By and large, it is our bodies wearing out. Sans Alzheimer's, the brain is fine. My grandmother was 80 and had the same clear mindset of a twenty-something. But we are, some would say, \"trapped\" in bodies that expire before our minds do.

Third, our practice of medicating organic bodies surely has its flaws. The cures can be worse than the disease. There exists no drug without side effects. And it comes from having to pit synthetic compounds against organic problems. We fight a never ending arms race with viruses and bacteria. For every cure we find, evolution will enforce one of two outcomes - it will either be eradicated as in the case of smallpox, or through its own will to live, it will morph into a stronger specimen, as have many of our now antibiotic-resistant diseases.

Aside from where nanotechnology goes - and perhaps it feeds into the GitS future - cybernetics seem to be as good a solution as any to all these issues.