From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Mon Apr 16 2001 - 03:21:42 MDT
Emlyn wrote:
>
> It may be quite a while before we go plugging things into our brains. It's
> hard (brains are complex), it's dangerous (elective neurosurgery anyone?),
> and who wants to be stuck with the neuro-jack equivalent of Betamax?
Of course, there are many other possibilities for direct interface that
do not require neurosurgery. Using nanotech for linkages without normal
surgery is one of course. Another might be some form of deep memory
sensing and input signalling that is a future outgrowth of the most
advanced work in field now.
Input into the visual cortex is not all that difficult or dangerous and
will be less so a very few years down the road.
In the meantime much of the necessary software can be built and field
tested and many of the benefits can be gained by ubiquitous and wearable
computing.
>
> Meanwhile, we will continue to become less geographical in outlook. People
> will do many more things from a physical distance, although the concept of
> being far (tele) will drift away, as our communication technology improves.
> You may be working with someone on the other side of the planet, but if you
> have a video conference wall screen, surround sound, and highly
> sophisticated groupware with which to communicate, you are not going to
> *feel* far. All that's still without considering true virtual environments;
> the helmet-gloves-etc full immersion scenario.
>
> I think you'll find that, by the time we begin to seriously contemplate
> direct neural interfaces, we'll already be a long way down the path to
> complete reliance on information systems for most aspects of our lives.
> We'll already have been through multiple security-related crises, as
> successive steps toward total immersion are made, and the subsequent new
> environments are violated. In fact, we've already been through many such
> problems.
That is a very good point.
> At this point in time, people are moving en-masse from intermittent access
> to the net, to permanent connection, and are feeling the pain, en-masse,
> associated with that. So we see products like firewalls becoming a
> mainstream software consumable; Windows XP apparently will come with a
> firewall built in (scary...). We'll be having a lot more security problems,
Windows XP will also come with software to throttle MP3 production.
Death to Micro$oft!
- samantha
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