Computers Linked to Nervous System by
Mid-Century
Source: The Times of
India
November 19, 2000
By mid-century computers will be linked directly into our nervous
systems via nanotechnology, which is so small it could connect to every neuron
in our brains. Paul Bray reports
It is 2020. You are lounging on a coral atoll, surrounded by a
group of co-workers of god-like physique. Among them is your personal assistant,
to whom you are dictating the itinerary of a forthcoming business trip. A badge
twinkles in your lapel and a client drops in to discuss the software package you
developed this morning. You click your fingers at a plastic panel in your lap
and and show your colleague the document that appears there. You ask your PA to
find and precis any similar documents he/she can find on the Internet. While
waiting, you make a cup of tea your client is not thirsty but before it has
brewed your PA drops the precis of 15 documents into your lap.
The only disappointment in this scenario is that, after 20 years
of genetic engineering, we may still have to wait a minute for tea to brew. Ian
Pearson, BTs official futurologist, is sorry about that, but tea isnt really his
business. He can, however, explain how the rest of this fictional scenario could
become fact within 20 years.
Perhaps we should explain that, while perfectly plausible, our
scenario is not all it seems. To begin with, you are not on a coral atoll, but
at a rented desk in a teleworking centre near your home.
Anti-noise technology which generates sound waves that cancel out
any ambient noise means you cant hear the other teleworkers. You cant see them
either, because you are wearing electronic contact lenses with a radio
transceiver, miniature circuitry and micro-mirrors that focus a computer image
directly onto your retina.
The coral atoll is merely a photo-realistic back-projection. Your
co-workers are also computer images. You have never met them and you are all on
short-term contracts, but it is comforting to have them around.
Actually, you could probably pass them in the street without
recognising them, because their images called avatars may have been
electronically reprocessed to remove a couple of decades, or a dozen kilos of
cellulite. You are not even sure what sex they are, since nobody has to be
themselves any more.
Computers will have full natural language recognition by 2020,
which means that when you mutter, Im going to Copenhagen for that conference on
Friday, the PA will double-check your diary before booking flights and hotels on
the Internet.
The twinkling badge in your lapel will be a miniature computer.
Most computing tasks, such as processing and storing data, will be done on
central networked computers. So your badge will be little more than a secure
radio transceiver, which will bounce signals from the network onto your display,
and relay back the responses from your microphone, mouse, keyboard, electronic
pen, or whatever form of interface you prefer.
When you are out and about, the badge will become a personality
badge. At conferences, it will network with the badges of other delegates to
find people with similar interests and arrange meetings with them.
Other badge functions could include delivering computer-based
presentations, playing MP3-style music files, pinpointing your current location
via satellite link, and voice communications.
Mobile phones will continue to get smaller and lighter, with
voice-controlled dialling because they will be too small for keypads. They will
be amalgamated with handheld computers, with functions such as videoconferencing
and graphical web browsing, and will give 20 hours talk time on a single battery
charge, though this will probably be through lower-power components, not better
batteries.
The distinction between mobile and fixed phones will disappear. We
shall simply have one handset and one number, which will use the cheapest and
most appropriate technology wherever we are. And our homes and offices will be
served by wireless networks linked to fibreoptic cables, with capacities of 100
megabits per second enough to carry 50 TV channels at once.
Back at the atoll, you could be using a big wrap-around screen to
display your co-workers avatars and a sheet of electronic paper in your lap for
reading documents and annotating them with an electronic pen.
Gazing deeper into his crystal ball, Pearson foresees that by
mid-century computers will be linked directly into our nervous systems via
nanotechnology, which is so small it could connect to every neuron in our
brains. By about 2040 there will be a backup of our brains in a computer
somewhere so when you die it wont be a major career problem.
http://www.timesofindia.com/191100/19revw18.htm