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