Chip in the Head

One of my favorite sayings for the last couple of years has been “I can’t wait until they develop a chip to put in your head so that you can be connected to the internet all the time. In fact, I’ll take 2, they’re small!” Can you imagine the benefits? No? Well let me tell ‘ya.

I know some…uh…ok, most of my ideas are a little over the top for most people. I guaranty though that most of them will come to pass, whether you like them or not. So embrace them, they will enrich your life.

One of the ways it will enrich your life is being able to store information on a web server. In the past I had wished for a hard drive that could be implanted into my head so I could remember people’s names, numbers, faces, etc. But with an internet transmission  chip, (WiFi Chip) you could transmit just about unlimited information to your “server” and have access to the info without having to carry around a hard drive in your head. As long as you had a connection you could recall any info you had stored on it. Much lighter that a hard drive.

Well, as life would have it, there is apparently an easier way to do it other than drilling a whole in your head and implanting a chip. (Although they have already done this. Check out this little videohttp://www.cyberkineticsinc.com/video.htm )

I should take a step back and build up to the “over the top” technology just so you can see how I came to know what’s coming. It’s not rocket science, just connecting some obvious dots.

EEG’s (electroencephalogram) are used in hospitals to measure, track, and decode electrical brain activity. Pretty basic there right? The brain has millions of neurons that “fire” with electrical impulses and an EEG can see this. A few decades ago this was considered unbelievable. We now have computers capable of reacting to this information and using it as commands for certain functions, like “Open Media Player” or “Go to MySpace”. EEG’s, as you might have guessed, are rather expensive, and I can only imagine difficult to “hook up” to your computer, not to mention the programming involved. This brings us to the next unbelievable leap in tech. (That’s sarcasm, all of this is pretty straight forward)

  There is a new start up company called Neruosky that you may or may not have heard of. They have developed a headband that will connect to a gaming console in place of a hand held controller. Instead of ruining your thumbs mashing the buttons on your game pad all you will have to do is put on this headband and “think” of what action you want the game to perform. Want to aim and fire, just look at the target and think bang! Want your character to run down a hallway and jump over a pit? Just “will” it to do so. At the speed of thought you’ll be flying through levels of your favorite games!

Sound too good to be true? This already exists! I haven’t even started surmising what will happen in the future yet. But wait, there’s more!

 Last year Sony store redirect for deep linking into the SonyStyle sitetook out a patent on a new gaming system that uses ultrasonic pulses to “beam” information straight into your head. You heard right! You will more than likely not even need a TV, (although Sony store redirect for deep linking into the SonyStyle site makes a wonderful plasma). Just put on the gaming cap, lean back, and blast away. This new game console will, apparently (after all, you can’t go to Best Buy and pick one up yet) transmit the images and sounds as well as smells, tastes, and sensory data into your brain. I’m not sure I really want to be able to smell the zombies I’m shooting, but I like having the option. Imagine the movie The Matrix, only without the foot long spike stabbing into the back of your head. This too is not make-believe, but actual technology being engineered and produced by the engineering wizards atSony store redirect for deep linking into the SonyStyle site.

All of this so far has only been by and for video games. I have not even started talking about what you could use this for in the business world. If you haven’t yet seen the movie The Matrix I highly suggest it, because it is probably the best outline for what the “new” internet may be like (Only without the evil Agent programs… hopefully). Instead of having to fly all over the place for conferences and meetings, you could do it virtually. No travel expense, no traffic, no planes blowing up. Just relax in your own living room, scratching you privates, and “be” at the conference with everyone else just as if you were there physically.

It will also be the best learning tool ever created. You will be able to have raw data transmitted directly into your brain. Instead of hours of studying class, years in school, imagine being able to put on your headband and download say…Spanish, in minutes or hours. I’m quite sure you won’t be able to speak it fluently right away, but you’ll have all the data in your head to practice with. School will no longer be about inputting data, years of drudgery and repetition. Instead it will be about learning how to use the knowledge you have in your head. Wisdom!  

There will, of course, be some possible downsides to this. (This is where the “like it or not” comes in) The first and most insidious is the “Evil Government Mind Control” scenario. With the ability to put information right into your brain, who is to say what gets put there. Maybe you are just playing Unreal Tournament online, having fun blasting your buddies from school, and the whole time the “Evil Government” is programming you to “Obey and Submit”, or “Vote for Whatshisname”.  

Second is the infamous Spaminator! Imagine walking through the mall, minding your own business, drinking a nice white chocolate mocha, when all of a sudden an infomercial screams in your head “It dices, it slice, it never needs sharpening! But wait, there’s more!”  You have just inadvertently walked through a marked advertisement area. On the wall above the poster of whatever gizmo is being plugged there is a small transmitter beaming commercials into passing absentminded shoppers. The images, sounds, smells, and feel of it washing over you as if you were using it at that very moment. The only reason they aren’t broadcasting their commercial over a wide area is because of strict regulation by the FCC.

These are just two possible scenarios, both of which are being done to us right now, just not with any new gadgets that can beam it in. No, brainwashing by secret evil groups is still done with drugs, depravation, and torture chambers. Advertisers are still plastering every flat surface with billboards and every magazine with propaganda.

 Those are a couple of negative negatives, but the bad will happen even if we ban the good. Of course we should be vigilant for abuses of advanced technology, but never at the expense of advancing technology. These scenarios will come to pass, maybe not exactly how I’ve described them, but in the general direction. As surly as the computer has evolved to where it is now, it will continue to evolve, surpassing even my wildest dreams. Like it or not, the computer will become more and more a part of us, probably even literally. I suppose you could choose not to embrace the technology, which is Ok by me. Like a jar of cookies, if you choose not to have any, that just leaves more for me, but, one way or another, the cookies will be baked and eaten.

Shawn Gilbert 9-12-06