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I don't know why it took me so long to notice... except for the semicool alt croonings pumped into the air, it was otherwise silent in the Coffee, Tea and Me-eria. I counted thirty-three heads that were not baristas and were not mine, and were not paying the least bit of attention to anything besides the electronic webfinders in their thumb-typing hands.
Not that I could blame them of course... I have been sucked into the Internet myself, from one awesome website to the next. I understood the appeal. Where I differed from my younger compadres was that I was sitting alone. I brought my laptop with me because I knew that I wouldn't have any company and could count on an uninterrupted flow of time in which to pour my effluvia.
But every other table in the joint was multiply occupied... heck, the one closest to me had seven college-aged youths crammed around a four-seater, forcing them into a satellite pattern, a ring so distant from table's edge they had to strain to place their half-ounce espresso cups beyond the table's edge to prevent catastrophic tipover. And yet they did so, silently and sans protest, staring intently at the tiny glowing screens grasped tightly in their rapidly writing hands.
Is this what has become of modern American interaction? Has standard conversation gone the way of all things extinct, to be replaced with this silent and editable medium? Has humanity progressed beyond all need to converse audibly, or is there still hope for our increasingly underused vocal cords?
I hold a fervent belief that hope reigns.
Where did this behavior begin?
One possibility not to be overlooked was the grade school classroom. When I was a boy, 'pass this note to Suzie', once a familiar whisper between desk row neighbors, was a perpetually perilous temptation often leading to the gleeful announcing of formerly private feelings to the whole room by an underpaid and malevolent substitute teacher. I'm certain one hyper-embarrassed tween genius swore to end the inherent weakness of a passed note and used their big brain to help carve the way for a new, hack-free mode of communication, inventing computers and the Internet in one fell swoop.
Beepers, the short-lived interim surrogate in the 1970's and 80's, brought about a new form of code. Limited to a single line of numbers, shrewd youths designed a system of communication that substituted two or three digit numbers for predetermined generic phrases a la CB radio. While '10-20' meant 'what's your location' to truckers everywhere, the number '4-20' had an entirely different connotation to 'beep-coders' of the youth generation. The problem of course was how to distribute a code among kids that wouldn't be broken by their nosy parents... and that desire brought about the cell phone revolution. Okay, I'm sure that's incorrect, but... for the purpose of this essay I'm gonna stick with it.
Until here that is. Because this is when digital alphanumeric pagers began receiving and sending brief messages, making those hard-memorized codes moot and pushing us all one step closer to future shock. They were only incrementally better than their root parents, pagers, and were not fated to live long in this world as newer and better devices loomed just over the horizon. Not surprisingly, a sizable chunk of our population swears by them to this day. Luddites.
Cell phones took us one step further in the search for truly private electronic communication, but though it was wireless, it was not silent and therefore it could not be used effectively in the classroom. Speak quietly or in code, the big bad teacher would hear you and perform the most humiliating of tasks-- forced relinquishment. Back then as now, every school had a big basket in the main office where confiscated phones would go, until shamed and chastised parents came to collect them at end of business, forced to withstand the school policy on 'interruptions' by some low-on-the-totem-pole sadistic office staff or worse, their power-hungry secretary yearning for a larger piece of the disciplinary pie.
Finally we reach now, this moment in time... the age of texting. Coupled with its multivarious hardware, texting represents the first method of truly silent, truly immediate communication, a technology whose creation was almost certainly rooted in the high school classroom, caused by raging hormonal reactions to that sweet thang two aisles over and the equally raging need to share your 'horniness' with your homies. An emotion I readily admit is responsible for nearly ALL of humanity's advances, technological or otherwise (Forsooth young maiden, harken this dragon-slaying contraption I've devised to save us all!). Now you can express dirty nothings to your beloved in full view of your friends, siblings, parents or dare I say, even preachers without a peep of disparagement or disappointment from any of them! Glory, glory hallelujah!
Every great advancement comes with its own host of backslides, though. When there were only two automobiles in the state of Ohio back in 1895... they somehow engaged in a head-on collision. Nuclear power was figured out, which would guarantee cheap electricity for all humanity, but once military men found out about the new power source... they made a bomb out of it. And texting, miracle though it may be, is no exception. I refer you back to the top of this essay and the advent of silent cliques, the ironic crushing of social interaction. That has the potential to change the way we relate to one another, at the macro level.
So where are we going from here? Are we forever doomed to the act of burying our noses in the electronic equivalent of a magazine? Will there eventually be a solution to the wide-scale ignoring of each other out in public?
To answer, we have to find the reasons why most people are hooked on web surfing in the first place. As this is a blog where I simply muse about the future rather than put forth hard data after exhaustive research, I'll do that now, and in the shamelessly brash fashion you've come to expect from me.
People love information, and they want it right now. Hence, the wireless Internet. There's no better way to shut up a know-it-all than by doing a quick search in response to some suspicious claim and spouting, "It says here on scientificdata.com that your theory is full of malarkey!" It may not make you a lot of friends, but it sure will fill your head with the rightness of correct information. That's something at least.
So how can we get our faces out of the teeny-weenie screenies and back where it should be... watching how we cross a busy intersection? How can we have our knowledge of cake construction, and learn how to eat it, too? For me the answer is clear, and not so very far off into the future:
Implantable Internet.
Implanternet.
Okay, we can work on the tag later. But you catch my drift. And we've already seen it at work... sort of. A quarter century ago a movie came out which changed our view of robots forever. It may be why we don't see a lot of people-shaped robots in development right now. That movie was called Terminator, featuring the ever-slimy Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it scared the crap out of us.
Disregarding the fear for a minute, weren't you completely jealous of the Terminator's ability to call up software and research data in his eye? He'd hear somebody speak to him, and the software in his negatronic brain would interpret the sentence and compile a list of acceptable responses, viewable through his eye like a floating computer screen on his cornea. How cool is that?
At first I thought simply. I just wanted a telephone which worked that way. I imagined I'd speak "begin phone" and the telephone options screen would pop up in my field of vision, seen only by me. I'd say the name of someone and a predigested list would return the phone number instantly, and connect me to them. I'd start speaking and they would hear me and be able to respond, no matter what type of phone they were using. And pedestrians all around me would believe I was insane, speaking to myself... like they do with Bluetooth businessmen today. No matter.
But then I realized the limitations... what if I wanted to call someone for whom I had no number? Would I have to look them up the old-fashioned way? You know, firing up the old computer and searching on WhitePages.com? Why not skip a step?
Voila, Implanternet!
(Ugh, that word sounds like a snack food...)
I realize we're not there yet. Hardware miniaturization needs to progress some more, and it wouldn't hurt to figure out a biological motherboard that won't get surrounded by scar tissue like a 1950's-issue breast implant. Or a power source that didn't need us to step into a Borg Alcove. Or an interface that wouldn't backfire and begin controlling us like an Apple Android Army, but let's get past those challenges for the purpose of this brainstorm.
Imagine if you will-- armed with the William Tellish slogan "Put an Apple in Your Head!" the world's most creative computer giant leads the charge in this bioimplantation revolution, painting a glowing picture of dazzling wonders on the horizon to come:
Dateline: 2030-- Forget schools, classrooms and learning! Here at Apple we're amping up Internet service so it reaches every inch of the Earth. Why? To make you a permanent part of the Cloud, that's why! How? Implanternet! With our new product, you can--
• Instantly become as smart as god!
Well, that last one is patently untrue, if for no other reason than the intelligence of god is untested and therefore cannot be measured nor compared against. Plus, (and you can't do this with god) you could turn everyone back into babbling idiots simply by cutting off the Internet. But with constant and immediate access to Google search, you could certainly sound as smart as Mr Wik I Pedia.
But hey, this is the 'pro' side of the essay.
Once the device is up and running, third-party software companies would jump on the bandwagon to build a staggering number of free eyePhone apps (ooh, see what I did there?), creating a near endless number of things you can suddenly do, hands and tools free:
-You can hear a metronome for perfect timing, or a tuner for perfect pitch.
-You can keep a playlist going in your head, in perfect stereo.
-You can check your blood alcohol level before driving.
-Your Implanternet can interface with your self-driving car if you can't drive, and get you home.
-You can check a picture for level just by looking at it (with the 'level' app).
-You can slaughter anyone who gets in your way. I'm talking about an app, Hitler.
-You can read a book that is floating just in front of you, Kindle style.
-You can immediately decide if that purchase will bust your account. Drat.
-You can check the calories of the food on your plate. Double drat.
-You can suddenly have microscope or telescope vision... or x-ray vision. Woohoo!
-You can know every detail about a museum piece, a building on the street or any business you pass.
-Never be lost again; by entering a destination you are directed flawlessly.
-You could know the public details of any person you meet simply by looking at their face.
-You could analyze a compound and determine its molecular construction by looking at it.
-You could hypnotize a person into having sex with you.
Let me be clear. You could not hypnotize a person into having sex with you. You could, however, be reading from a guide on how to be charming without them knowing.
-You'd be able to sit in a classroom, meeting, courtroom or even a church and conduct digital business, silently and without disturbance. The most astute observer could only determine that you were busy, somehow, yet not paying attention.
-Your valuable data could be stored on a series of grit-sized hard drives located all over your body.
-And possibly the coolest use-- you could project a flashlight from your eyes! X-Men GO!
Okay, so you're sold. How would this device get inside of you?
Well, first we'd need to split your skin lengthwise from sternum to crotch, and then carefully filet around your heart, lungs and sex organs to create room for the central processing unit. Lifting out your eyes, we'd replace them with ocular implants. The same happens with your ears, although the exterior part remains untouched... except for microphones dangling off both lobes (for stereo sound).
I could go into further detail, but then you would run screaming from this description and not realize that I was completely lying.
Yes, lying. While people will still go under the knife for a trimmer tummy or a fatter schlong, most prefer to remain far from any instrument that is designed to draw blood. So of course, there will be no scalpels.
In truth, I envision hundreds or thousands of tiny Bluetooth devices, injected into your bloodstream using a single standard syringe, or swallowed in a capsule. Once inside the devices begin navigating themselves to the correct points in your body (i.e., cameras to your eye, speakers to your ear canal, microphones to your oral cavity). Information you were meant to see would be cast onto the macula by projectors in your vitreous humor, creating a 'floating page' effect in front of your face that nobody else could see.
How far off is this? You'd have to ask a lawyer. Anytime something goes into the body, the FDA has to get a piece of it, and that could delay it by a decade. But If that proves to be too much of a problem, I have an interim solution as well (because that's just what I DO):
Intershades!
Yes, everything I mentioned in this last section could be neatly fit into the frame of a rather unattractive, heavy pair of sunglasses. I agree it's not nearly as hip, and it would make your face sweat, and it could be lost or stolen... but it could be here in a year. And that's something, at least. Let's not forget what hassles we gladly went through to have the first mobile telephones, the first mobile DJs (boom boxes) and the first mobile vehicles (horse and buggy). Intershades won't be so bad by comparison... at least we wouldn't have to clean up their poop.
But the goal here is a truly hands-free, interactive, bio-memetic do-everything device. An internal Swiss Army Knife, if you will. Come hell or high water, they will become available in the near future, as surely as digital billboards. Ooh, one more use!
How do I personally feel about it? I'm fine with an Implantable Internet... just so long as, when it crashes, we don't need a defibrillator.
Clear!
Oh, and if you're looking for the 'con' side of the essay, here it is: Some backward-thinking jerks in Congress will try to prevent this and tie it up in committee for endless sessions, if we let them. So we don't let 'em. Pay the fuckers off, if we have to.
One possibility not to be overlooked was the grade school classroom. When I was a boy, 'pass this note to Suzie', once a familiar whisper between desk row neighbors, was a perpetually perilous temptation often leading to the gleeful announcing of formerly private feelings to the whole room by an underpaid and malevolent substitute teacher. I'm certain one hyper-embarrassed tween genius swore to end the inherent weakness of a passed note and used their big brain to help carve the way for a new, hack-free mode of communication, inventing computers and the Internet in one fell swoop.
Probably not.
Beepers, the short-lived interim surrogate in the 1970's and 80's, brought about a new form of code. Limited to a single line of numbers, shrewd youths designed a system of communication that substituted two or three digit numbers for predetermined generic phrases a la CB radio. While '10-20' meant 'what's your location' to truckers everywhere, the number '4-20' had an entirely different connotation to 'beep-coders' of the youth generation. The problem of course was how to distribute a code among kids that wouldn't be broken by their nosy parents... and that desire brought about the cell phone revolution. Okay, I'm sure that's incorrect, but... for the purpose of this essay I'm gonna stick with it.
Until here that is. Because this is when digital alphanumeric pagers began receiving and sending brief messages, making those hard-memorized codes moot and pushing us all one step closer to future shock. They were only incrementally better than their root parents, pagers, and were not fated to live long in this world as newer and better devices loomed just over the horizon. Not surprisingly, a sizable chunk of our population swears by them to this day. Luddites.
Cell phones took us one step further in the search for truly private electronic communication, but though it was wireless, it was not silent and therefore it could not be used effectively in the classroom. Speak quietly or in code, the big bad teacher would hear you and perform the most humiliating of tasks-- forced relinquishment. Back then as now, every school had a big basket in the main office where confiscated phones would go, until shamed and chastised parents came to collect them at end of business, forced to withstand the school policy on 'interruptions' by some low-on-the-totem-pole sadistic office staff or worse, their power-hungry secretary yearning for a larger piece of the disciplinary pie.
Finally we reach now, this moment in time... the age of texting. Coupled with its multivarious hardware, texting represents the first method of truly silent, truly immediate communication, a technology whose creation was almost certainly rooted in the high school classroom, caused by raging hormonal reactions to that sweet thang two aisles over and the equally raging need to share your 'horniness' with your homies. An emotion I readily admit is responsible for nearly ALL of humanity's advances, technological or otherwise (Forsooth young maiden, harken this dragon-slaying contraption I've devised to save us all!). Now you can express dirty nothings to your beloved in full view of your friends, siblings, parents or dare I say, even preachers without a peep of disparagement or disappointment from any of them! Glory, glory hallelujah!
Every great advancement comes with its own host of backslides, though. When there were only two automobiles in the state of Ohio back in 1895... they somehow engaged in a head-on collision. Nuclear power was figured out, which would guarantee cheap electricity for all humanity, but once military men found out about the new power source... they made a bomb out of it. And texting, miracle though it may be, is no exception. I refer you back to the top of this essay and the advent of silent cliques, the ironic crushing of social interaction. That has the potential to change the way we relate to one another, at the macro level.
So where are we going from here? Are we forever doomed to the act of burying our noses in the electronic equivalent of a magazine? Will there eventually be a solution to the wide-scale ignoring of each other out in public?
To answer, we have to find the reasons why most people are hooked on web surfing in the first place. As this is a blog where I simply muse about the future rather than put forth hard data after exhaustive research, I'll do that now, and in the shamelessly brash fashion you've come to expect from me.
People love information, and they want it right now. Hence, the wireless Internet. There's no better way to shut up a know-it-all than by doing a quick search in response to some suspicious claim and spouting, "It says here on scientificdata.com that your theory is full of malarkey!" It may not make you a lot of friends, but it sure will fill your head with the rightness of correct information. That's something at least.
So how can we get our faces out of the teeny-weenie screenies and back where it should be... watching how we cross a busy intersection? How can we have our knowledge of cake construction, and learn how to eat it, too? For me the answer is clear, and not so very far off into the future:
Implantable Internet.
Implanternet.
Okay, we can work on the tag later. But you catch my drift. And we've already seen it at work... sort of. A quarter century ago a movie came out which changed our view of robots forever. It may be why we don't see a lot of people-shaped robots in development right now. That movie was called Terminator, featuring the ever-slimy Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it scared the crap out of us.
Disregarding the fear for a minute, weren't you completely jealous of the Terminator's ability to call up software and research data in his eye? He'd hear somebody speak to him, and the software in his negatronic brain would interpret the sentence and compile a list of acceptable responses, viewable through his eye like a floating computer screen on his cornea. How cool is that?
At first I thought simply. I just wanted a telephone which worked that way. I imagined I'd speak "begin phone" and the telephone options screen would pop up in my field of vision, seen only by me. I'd say the name of someone and a predigested list would return the phone number instantly, and connect me to them. I'd start speaking and they would hear me and be able to respond, no matter what type of phone they were using. And pedestrians all around me would believe I was insane, speaking to myself... like they do with Bluetooth businessmen today. No matter.
But then I realized the limitations... what if I wanted to call someone for whom I had no number? Would I have to look them up the old-fashioned way? You know, firing up the old computer and searching on WhitePages.com? Why not skip a step?
Voila, Implanternet!
(Ugh, that word sounds like a snack food...)
I realize we're not there yet. Hardware miniaturization needs to progress some more, and it wouldn't hurt to figure out a biological motherboard that won't get surrounded by scar tissue like a 1950's-issue breast implant. Or a power source that didn't need us to step into a Borg Alcove. Or an interface that wouldn't backfire and begin controlling us like an Apple Android Army, but let's get past those challenges for the purpose of this brainstorm.
Imagine if you will-- armed with the William Tellish slogan "Put an Apple in Your Head!" the world's most creative computer giant leads the charge in this bioimplantation revolution, painting a glowing picture of dazzling wonders on the horizon to come:
Dateline: 2030-- Forget schools, classrooms and learning! Here at Apple we're amping up Internet service so it reaches every inch of the Earth. Why? To make you a permanent part of the Cloud, that's why! How? Implanternet! With our new product, you can--
• Rid yourself of cumbersome laptops, iPads or even iPhones forever!
• Speak to anyone, anywhere, instantly!
• Watch videos of any kind, safe from inquisitive eyes!
• Be guaranteed that nobody will ever steal your computer again!
• Conduct sensitive business privately!
Well, that last one is patently untrue, if for no other reason than the intelligence of god is untested and therefore cannot be measured nor compared against. Plus, (and you can't do this with god) you could turn everyone back into babbling idiots simply by cutting off the Internet. But with constant and immediate access to Google search, you could certainly sound as smart as Mr Wik I Pedia.
But hey, this is the 'pro' side of the essay.
Once the device is up and running, third-party software companies would jump on the bandwagon to build a staggering number of free eyePhone apps (ooh, see what I did there?), creating a near endless number of things you can suddenly do, hands and tools free:
-You can hear a metronome for perfect timing, or a tuner for perfect pitch.
-You can keep a playlist going in your head, in perfect stereo.
-You can check your blood alcohol level before driving.
-Your Implanternet can interface with your self-driving car if you can't drive, and get you home.
-You can check a picture for level just by looking at it (with the 'level' app).
-You can slaughter anyone who gets in your way. I'm talking about an app, Hitler.
-You can read a book that is floating just in front of you, Kindle style.
-You can immediately decide if that purchase will bust your account. Drat.
-You can check the calories of the food on your plate. Double drat.
-You can suddenly have microscope or telescope vision... or x-ray vision. Woohoo!
-You can know every detail about a museum piece, a building on the street or any business you pass.
-Never be lost again; by entering a destination you are directed flawlessly.
-You could know the public details of any person you meet simply by looking at their face.
-You could analyze a compound and determine its molecular construction by looking at it.
-You could hypnotize a person into having sex with you.
Let me be clear. You could not hypnotize a person into having sex with you. You could, however, be reading from a guide on how to be charming without them knowing.
-You'd be able to sit in a classroom, meeting, courtroom or even a church and conduct digital business, silently and without disturbance. The most astute observer could only determine that you were busy, somehow, yet not paying attention.
-Your valuable data could be stored on a series of grit-sized hard drives located all over your body.
-And possibly the coolest use-- you could project a flashlight from your eyes! X-Men GO!
Okay, so you're sold. How would this device get inside of you?
I could go into further detail, but then you would run screaming from this description and not realize that I was completely lying.
Yes, lying. While people will still go under the knife for a trimmer tummy or a fatter schlong, most prefer to remain far from any instrument that is designed to draw blood. So of course, there will be no scalpels.
In truth, I envision hundreds or thousands of tiny Bluetooth devices, injected into your bloodstream using a single standard syringe, or swallowed in a capsule. Once inside the devices begin navigating themselves to the correct points in your body (i.e., cameras to your eye, speakers to your ear canal, microphones to your oral cavity). Information you were meant to see would be cast onto the macula by projectors in your vitreous humor, creating a 'floating page' effect in front of your face that nobody else could see.
How far off is this? You'd have to ask a lawyer. Anytime something goes into the body, the FDA has to get a piece of it, and that could delay it by a decade. But If that proves to be too much of a problem, I have an interim solution as well (because that's just what I DO):
Intershades!
Yes, everything I mentioned in this last section could be neatly fit into the frame of a rather unattractive, heavy pair of sunglasses. I agree it's not nearly as hip, and it would make your face sweat, and it could be lost or stolen... but it could be here in a year. And that's something, at least. Let's not forget what hassles we gladly went through to have the first mobile telephones, the first mobile DJs (boom boxes) and the first mobile vehicles (horse and buggy). Intershades won't be so bad by comparison... at least we wouldn't have to clean up their poop.
But the goal here is a truly hands-free, interactive, bio-memetic do-everything device. An internal Swiss Army Knife, if you will. Come hell or high water, they will become available in the near future, as surely as digital billboards. Ooh, one more use!
How do I personally feel about it? I'm fine with an Implantable Internet... just so long as, when it crashes, we don't need a defibrillator.
Clear!
Oh, and if you're looking for the 'con' side of the essay, here it is: Some backward-thinking jerks in Congress will try to prevent this and tie it up in committee for endless sessions, if we let them. So we don't let 'em. Pay the fuckers off, if we have to.
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