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March 08 PC World Snippet

Angel Tarragon

Dawn Dragon
[bq]Our Computers, Ourselves

Ambient computing will extend from house walls to body cells. Verichip makes a pea-sized radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip that can be injected under diabetes' patients skin to monitor glucose without a blood sample.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland are exploring how to spray computerized sensors into patients' chests during heart surgery so the sensors can realy information to the hospital computer. The process could be commercially available in ten years.

Body computers will progress from monitoring health to delivering medical care and ultimately augmenting reality by piping the internet directly into the brain-if people can overcome their squeamishness about brain implants. "Theres a very short leap between implant a [cochlear] device and one that lets you receive data directly from the Net," Tucker says.

Researchers are moving ahead boldly. For three months in 2002, Kevin Warwick, a cybernetics professor at the University of Reading in England lived with electrodes implanted in his arm. In one test, he wired them to an Internet connected PC and then temporarily attached electrodes to his wife's arm as well. Warwick described this experiment in a 2006 interview with ITWales.com: "[W]hen she moved her hand three times, I felt in my brain, three pulses, and my brain recognized that my wife was communicating with me. It was the world's first purely electronic communication from brain to brain, and therefore the basis for thought communication."[/bq]
What can I say other than AWESOME!! I had not realized tech had come this far already. The mag predicts Space Tourism by 2013, Holodecks (virtual reality revolution thanks to popularity of 3D movies and online worlds such as Second Life) by 2016, Slef-Aware computer by 2019 and domestic robots (I hope they are programmed with Asimov's 3 laws of robotics) by 2020.

The future is looking bright indeed! :cool:
 
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Reveille said:
What can I say other than AWESOME!! I had not realized tech had come this far already. The mag predicts Space Tourism by 2013, Holodecks (virtual reality revolution thanks to popularity of 3D movies and online worlds such as Second Life) by 2016, Slef-Aware computer by 2019 and domestic robots (I hope they are programmed with Asimov's 3 laws of robotics) by 2020.

Um, yeah. Since it appears in print, it must be true. Pardon my skepticism, but I don't buy it. Especially the self-aware computers - I've yet to see anyone make any sort of reasonable claim to knowing how to accomplish that one.

But, if you like optimism, try this: The Boston Metro had an article today discussing some research results in which scientists at the University of Newcastle were able to coax the development of sperm cells from human eggs. If this one pans out, women will no longer need men to breed. Combined that with the domestic robots, and the gents will become thoroughly obsolete.
 

Umbran said:
Um, yeah. Since it appears in print, it must be true. Pardon my skepticism, but I don't buy it. Especially the self-aware computers - I've yet to see anyone make any sort of reasonable claim to knowing how to accomplish that one.
It was only a prediction. That doesn't mean it will come to pass; this much I do know. I'm not a complete idiot. ;)
 

Reveille said:
It was only a prediction. That doesn't mean it will come to pass; this much I do know. I'm not a complete idiot. ;)

Sorry. Knee-jerk reaction. All these predicting types have lost my confidence when they completely failed on the Robots and Flying Cars in 2001 debacle.
 

I'm still waiting on my flying car, and they promised that when my father was a kid. So chop that grain of salt really fine before you take it:)

As is, I expect working molecular nanotech will take at least 30 years. Beyond that, there's a lot of things that will be hindered even further because of reactions to the idea. Many would be willing to accept a pharmacopia implant that could automatically dispense needed medicine. But anything capable of communicating wirelessly in any manner or to interact directly with the brain will be under massive scrutiny and probably not do well. People are paranoid about those sort of things, and for good reason, potential for misuse is very high.
 


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