iPad, youPad

If there's one thing that's fun about the gadget of Apple, it's prognosticating about new devices without even touching them. I probably won't buy an iPad, but I think it's pretty nifty technology and it will probably find a niche beyond just "People Who Buy Anything that Steve Jobs blesses." Still, even with all the info reveal, I think there's still a question of where it will fit in a consumer's arsenal of technology:

* Work - There's pretty much no way this device will work at work. Imagine modifying a spreadsheet with this sucker. Seems improbable right? If the iPhone couldn't dislodge the dominance of BlackBerrys there's almost no way the iPad will become a widely used business tool. Just not gonna happen.

* Play - The joy of the iPhone/iPod touch is that it's a proper portable and innovative gaming device. PSPs and DSs are great, but most average folks aren't carrying those around, unless they're gamers already. Will there be a whole lot of new awesome games for the iPad? Absolutely. Will people buy this sucker specifically as a gaming device? Highly unlikely. Then there's music capability. Now, it's nice that I can listen to iTunes and buy music on this tablet, but similar to a hardcore gamer, if you're a big music listener you've already got an iPod and a home listening setup (a turntable or fancy computer speakers or whatever) and there's just no real need for this device as a portable music player. it does nothing really that an iPod/iPhone doesn't already.

* Other Stuff - This vaguely defined area is probably where iPad will succeed. As a book-reader it will at least give Amazon some competition, which is a good thing. As an internet device, it will give netbook makers a bit of fright. But I think the real killer app will be something that doesn't even exist yet. The biggest benefit of this device, as many commentators have said, is that it's literally a blank slate. A well executed, innovative app could make this thing a must have device. And believe me if I knew what that was, I'd be downloading the SDK today.

Will Your Future Children Get Giant Mechas For Christmas? (That They Control With Their Minds?)

We can know that a technology might just be a wave of the future if the Pentagon is dumping Heaps of Cash into its research and development. Such is the case with possibly my personal favorite Holy-Crap-Do-We-Realize-The-Implications emerging technology: brain-computer interfacing.

The idea is very simple. Put electrodes in the brain, on the surface of the brain, or, less invasively, on the ends of nerves. Electrodes read brain signals. Electrodes interpret said signals and tell a machine to do something.

Holy Crap, Do We Realize The Implications?

Yes, folks. Giant Mechas. Also, teledildonics. (Alternate post title: Will your future [adult!] children get teledildos for Chanukah?)

Very recently, a human being was given a robotic hand, which he was able to successfully control, and even reported feeling sensations through it. Even more recently, ProDigits, the first commercially available bionic hand, debuted in Britain (price tag quoted as 57-73 thousand dollars). Prior to this, the most successful experiment was giving a monkey a bionic arm in addition to its intact, functioning one (the functioning one being immobolized with a 'nerve block').

Both human and monkey test subjects were able to control the robotic arm with their thoughts; and it seems their brains adapted to the direct neural control fairly quickly – as the monkey article puts it, the monkey’s brain accepted the robot arm into its “neurospace.” In other words, it seems it became just as natural for the monkey’s brain to control the robot arm as it was to control the monkey’s real one. Which makes sense, if you think about it and have ever driven a car – I’m going out on a theoretical limb here, but I would bet we all have the experience of controlling the vehicles we drive directly and subconsciously. When learning to drive, inside our brains, at first it was all “I push pedal down halfway, car goes faster,” but now it’s just “car go faster.” I’m guessing the same natural feeling of body extension is what one would experience, being hooked up to a robot arm.

Currently, the intent is to allow replacement limbs for amputees. A similar but more primitive version of the concept has already been actualized and that allows people to spell words by controlling a cursor on a screen with directed thoughts – or, in a much cooler application, play Pong. But, if one thinks about it, the possibilities are endless and staggering.

First of all, realize that the technology essentially uses the firing of a set of neurons in the user’s brain as a trigger for an electronic/computer function. There is no limitation to what that function is. It may be natural to think of using one’s arm-twitch brain signals to twitch a robot arm, but a computer could just as easily use them to control a robot leg. Or a robot mouse. Or a microwave. Or, yes, to play Pong – or World of Warcraft.

(If you think we have already strayed into fantasy, see here. Or here. Or here. A game of "The Adventures of NeuroBoy," anyone?)

In fact, there’s nothing to prevent a simple system being set up whereby when the user flexes a bicep, a bell rings. Or an alarm goes off. Or, with a little more effort, an electrode gives that user an electric shock. Now, change the trigger signal from “flexes a bicep” to “flexes the muscles in the genitals” or even “brain involuntarily increases blood-flow to genitals” and you have a sexual denial system. Or, in a version less attractive to scary fundamentalists and clever fetishists, one could set up a system whereby when the user gets turned on, a small capsule imbedded in their bloodstream releases Viagra to give them some help. (Please note that Viagra is known to have an arousing effect on females, as well.)

Let’s keep pushing. If you can make any detectable signals from the brain equal anything that a computer can make happen in reality, what can’t you do? You could potentially send an email to a friend or update your Twitter – while walking down the street and seeming to do absolutely nothing at all (all you do is think the right commands, and your mobile device does it without leaving your pocket). You could potentially control your own limbs with your thoughts – an application being considered by researchers, for the purpose of restoring limb usage to people with nerve damage, but which could also be used to do stuff like make your eyes point opposite directions or vomit on command (if you so desired) or deliver yourself an internal shot of insulin if you have a diabetic attack. And you could, potentially, drive a car without using your hands or feet – or without being in the car. Or without being in the same hemisphere as the car.

Which brings me to the giant mechas, a.k.a. neurorobots. Staples of Japanese manga and anime for decades, these massive war-bots allow a tiny, well-trained individual to fight Extreme Battles while looking Damn Awesome doing it. If we could build such a machine – which, considering our struggles with mobile robots, could be a ways off, admittedly – then with an advanced brain-computer interface, a soldier could control it directly through brain signals, without joysticks or keyboards. The soldier could control it from a remote war room. The soldier could control it while it flies into outer space. Yes, folks, the soldier of the future might be… a video gamer.

(Actually, the soldier of today might already be a video gamer, what with drone planes and robot bomb-sniffers. But we’re talking remote-inhabited mobile infantry here, not support and artillery.)

I predict a geek sport in the eventual future in which teams create their own weird mechas, dressed up like Evangelions or the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, control them as a team (Bobby’s thoughts move the legs, Jenny’s thoughts fire the cannon) and battle them in arenas.

But that is only the beginning – I mentioned teledildonics, right? – because so far I have only talked about one-way, inside-out brain-computer interfacing.

The other way – going from outside in – is also under early development. Scientists have been able to make elementary recordings of what a cat’s and a human’s eyes have seen, and a technology called BrainPort allows visual signals to be sent to a blind person’s brain (similar to a cochlear implant for the hearing-impaired), amongst other applications.

These two technologies are complementary. One lets you control a computer and, by extension, anything a computer can control; the other lets a computer control, or least activate, your sensory experiences. Put them together, and what do you get? Forget controlling a giant mecha. Try being a giant mecha.

Imagine this giant war robot has video cameras, touch sensors, microphones. All we need is the technology to input this sensory information directly into your brain, and you experience the physical existence of the robot. Preferably, your natural sensory input from your real-life body is shut off temporarily; putting on blindfolds and getting in an isolation room would probably be sufficient, but nothing says we couldn’t figure out how to completely prevent you from experiencing the room your natural body is in. (Remember the 'nerve blocking' from the monkey-arm experiment?)

I don’t need to guide your imagination too far from there. It is only a few steps from the melding of these two technologies – which, remember, are under development – to all the wildest dreams of science-fiction. The Matrix? Easy (if you have enough computing power). Controlling another person’s body – in fact, switching bodies? Yep.

However, I believe things start getting really crazy when you remember, again, that there is nothing that says the relationship between the natural half of the equation (either the brain’s natural signals when going inside-out, or the natural world when going outside-in) and the computer-controlled half (the robot arm, the computer-generated sensory experience) has to be logical or typical.

Artificial synesthesia is possible; when the computer camera sees the color red, it can make your brain smell potatoes. If the computer camera is installed in the back of your own eye then you can be looped into yourself so that whenever you see the color red, you smell potatoes. Or whenever you taste potatoes, you hear the entirety of an Irish jig. Or whenever you hear an Irish jig, you automatically become aroused. Or whenever you become aroused, you’re suddenly, as far as your personal sensory reality is concerned, in the jungle, complete with visuals, smells, and the sensation of being strangled by an anaconda. (I’m sure it’s somebody’s fetish.)

Which brings me to teledildonics. Currently, as in that article, teledildonic technology is limited to stuff like the Sinulator, a pair of sex toys that simulate what is being done to the other sex toy remotely. Now we all know that sex has been one of the biggest motivators for improvement in technology – the porn industry was one of the first to get into both videotape and the Internet, so doubtless once these technologies start becoming a little closer to reality, baser human desires – and cold hard cash – will motivate all sorts of innovations. (How long until the first bionic penis replacement? Anyone wanna start a betting pool?) Innovations like a sex doll that you control with your thoughts (for yourself or someone else’s perverse enjoyment). Or celebrity porn stars who have sex with a volunteer who doesn’t mind getting Being John Malkovich’d, and a thousand users download themselves into his neurospace, and thus a thousand people have the same sexual experience. Or, scariest of all, direct stimulation of another person’s pleasure centers, which, following sci-fi author Larry Niven’s realistic vision of it, would be a technology so addictive its users die because they neglect to drink water or eat.

Now I don’t want to sound perverted. The applications are, of course, not strictly sexual. You could, for instance, play Super Mario Bros. 3 as Mario – as in, you become two-dimensional and stomp Koopa Troopas and grow to double size when you (YOU) touch a mushroom. If you can hook up your brain-interfacing computers to a network and thus to other people’s computers, you can have your theme music play in everyone’s heads whenever you enter the room. Or set it up so that if you feel an attraction to someone in the room, and they feel an attraction back, you both instantaneously “know” and can skip the awkward flirtation phase (okay, so that application was sexual). Or have a conversation with someone without speaking out loud – but you can still hear each other’s voices. For that matter, in the experience of you and the person you’re conversing with, you see each other’s mouths moving, and hands gesturing; but the rest of the world perceives two people sitting silently, unmoving - i.e., telepathy. (The military is researching precisely this application for battlefield purposes.) And then there’s whole-body uploading – where you more or less permanently inhabit another physical body, whether artificial or natural, whether looking like a human or like a frog or a anthropomorphic pencil. Basically, things can get weird.

Of course, the potential for abuse and crime is there too, but I’ll leave that to your imagination (or nightmares). I’ll also leave to your imagination the possibilities available when you consider that our perception of time is subjective, and therefore potentially controllable by sufficiently advanced interfacing.

To wrap up on that note, remember that, while all of this is fantastic, and the more out-there possibilities require the invention of some technologies that aren’t even conceived yet, for the most part the difference between where we are now and a world in which a person in Chicago and a person in Paris hook up by inhabiting sex robots on the moon is strictly a matter of degree and of combining technologies (like brain-computer interfacing and the Internet) that are currently separate. This technology is coming fast; I drafted this article in summer 2009, and only had the monkey experiment to refer to at that point. In a year or two, mark my words, once the technology is combined with this one and the motor functions and feedback are refined, people who can afford it (and of course it will get cheaper over time) will have completely undetectable replacement limbs; and it will only be a matter of time after that before some enterprising and slightly insane rich person gets themselves a third arm. So while I’m not saying we’ll be living in Tron anytime soon, don’t be surprised if within a decade or so, Team Mecha Battle Extreme!!! debuts on Japanese TV, or at least most forms of blindness and paralyzation are bypassed and effectively cured.

And to finally end on a wild tangent, this might be why we’ve never discovered intelligent life in the universe – perhaps whenever it gets to a certain point of technological development, a species simply closes up into virtual reality, stops bothering with space exploration, and has perfectly calibrated virtual orgies and tea parties until the end of time.

Once Upon a Time

This past Monday, I went to work - a common, if not always consistent, occurrence for me. But nothing about Monday's trip was common. For you see, on Monday I forgot my cell phone.

It was such a silly mistake. I left it sitting on my dresser instead of tucking it safely inside my purse or a pocket, as I usually do as soon as I wake up. And I, absent-minded goof that I am, never grabbed it. It's such an appendage to my being these days that I realized it was missing before I even got on the highway. I was just barely going to be on time for my class as it was, though, and could not turn around to retrieve it.

I was on my own. And this is a brief summary of the events that followed, complete with my thoughts at the time:

I got onto 495W at approximately 2:50 p.m., and immediately encountered a little bit of back-up from afternoon traffic. Oh shit, what if traffic is bad the whole way there? What if I'm running late and I can't call the school to let them know? The slowness soon eased, and I was cruising down the highway on my way to Travilah Elementary School in North Potomac. I arrived with just enough time to set up my classroom before my students started arriving. Is that clock correct? I wish I had my cell to tell me the exact time. I hope I'm not late bringing them out to their parents. Class lasted for an hour, and by 4:45, I was out of work and on my way to my friend Jescie's house, to meet up with her and go for Cold Stone.

Now here's where things got sticky. I was supposed to call Jescie once I left work and was on my way to her place. I had gotten directions from google maps, and was to let her know exactly what time I'd be getting there. Obviously, this was no longer an option, and I was just going to have to show up unannounced.

I hit the road, encountered no traffic, and was making good time. What if Jescie tried to change plans? What if she's not at her house when I get there, because I never called her? Well I can just get in touch with my roommate and ask her if I have any messages! Oh... wait. No I can't - I don't have my phone. Anyways, stop being silly. Of course she'll be home, she got your facebook message saying you'd be there between 5:15 and 5:30. Upon getting off 370, I discovered that google maps hadn't prepared me for the fork at Shady Grove Road, so I picked the most logical direction and kept driving. Oh geez, what if I get lost and can't call her for directions? My logic was rewarded when I easily found my next turn What if she's not home? What am I going to do? Oh my gosh, calm yourself, OF COURSE she'll be home, and I was at her house even earlier than I expected.

I walked up the sidewalk to the front door. The house looks awfully dark. Maybe she's not home from school yet. I did get here a few minutes before I said I would. I rang the doorbell, but no one answered. I knocked on the garage door. Nothing. I walked around to the back of the house, but the snow was undisturbed. Oh this figures. What do I do now? So I returned to my car to wait for her. Luckily, I had a book with me, and I read for 10 minutes before getting out and repeating my knocking and ringing. This is the right house, isn't it? Still nothing. Surely she'll drive up any minute now, and I'll feel foolish for worrying so much. I returned to my car and read for another 20 minutes. She's going to think I ditched out on our plans! The house was still dark. No new cars had pulled up. I was cold, getting hungry, and I couldn't call Jescie to let her know that I was at her house. Oh hey! I'm not far from Olney, and David is still at work. I can use their phone to... crap, I don't know Jescie's number! Dammit! I felt terrible about it, but I didn't know what else to do. I left.

I drove to Olney Theatre, but David didn't have Jescie's cell number. I still had an hour before I had to leave for my rehearsal, so we got a bite to eat and some hot chocolate. I was stewing in my own guilt, but the night had to go on, and so I started driving toward Bowie. Oh shoot, did I leave too late? I won't be able to call our stage manager and let him know! I arrived just in time, rehearsed, and finally, after 7 cellphone-less hours, headed home.

As soon as I got in, I called Jescie and apologized profusely. As it turns out, she had been home the whole time. She and her boyfriend live in the basement of the house, and have a separate entrance. She had wondered if I'd forgotten my phone, and even considered driving out to Cold Stone to see if I'd gone there. Had she come out to her car, she would have seen me sitting out front. We both laughed and apologized and made the same plans for next Monday.

Here's the thing though. In case you didn't catch on to the frenzied tone in my thoughts above, I was absolutely panicked for the majority of my time without my phone. My plans hinged on making a phone call. Without it, I was at a loss. But once upon a time (even 10 years ago), here's how our outing would have happened:

I would have picked up the landline at my house and called the landline at Jescie's.

Me: Hey Jescie, I'll be near your house next Monday! Want to meet up and get that Cold Stone?

J: Sure, sounds great! What time do you think you'll be there?

Me: Sometime between 5:15 and 5:30 depending on traffic.

J: Okay, do you need directions?

Me: Yeah, can you tell me the best way to get there from North Potomac?

J: (Gives directions) And so you know, the entrance to our place is on the left side of the house. You know what, I'll just be waiting outside for you at 5:15 so I can show you in.

Me: Great, thanks! See you then!

And I would have seen her then.

Easy. Simple. Direct. Complete.

Because once upon a time, we made complete plans before hitting the road. Once upon a time, we memorized our friends' phone numbers. Once upon a time, I didn't need total contact with everyone I know in order to function.

Sure, cell phones are great. In an emergency I feel much more secure and taken care of. But my gosh, I remember a time when I didn't have to rely on one. And sometimes I think that wasn't such a bad thing.

"A New and Refreshingly Different Experience"

Change. The theme of this year's Presidential Election. The agent at the center of all peril and progress. The story of my life.

So lucky day for me this past November 4th when me and 300 million of my closest friends scored a young, hip, populist president that fits two fundamental criteria I didn't realize I had for a president until Barack Obama exhibited them so effectively throughout his campaign:

1) The foresight to treat our challenges as opportunities.
2) Placing science AND the will of the people at the center of policy-making decisions without oppressing minority populations (race, tax bracket, choice of creative or religious expression, etc).

Before I start sounding like an Obama fanboy, allow me to mention a couple of early Obama moves I'm none-too-thrilled about. I'm not impressed with his choice of Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General. Feels too much like reality tv for me. Couldn't we get someone with more credentials than notoriety? And I'm not impressed with his one sentence answer regarding cannabis legalization given it was the highest rated question on the change.gov site, which he opened explicitly to get valuable feedback from the people. It was especially shady that they reordered the top 5 list when they sent out the responses. For some reason the question voted #1 was listed #4 and shafted in the "legitimate answer" department. But I understand how the political game works, and from what I've gathered of the man, I fully expect Obama to give us the opportunity to EARN the policy changes we the people truly want to see. Not only that, I expect him to do it without having to stick his neck out far enough for the status quo to chop his head off.

My theory is that Barack Obama's most potent weapon is the ability to understand and manipulate the variables at play to reach a reasonable outcome for most of those affected.

[tangent alert!]

Understanding the variables at play in any given situation creates a marked advantage towards monopolizing available resources. Up until very recently, those "in power," to me meaning those with monetary, celebrity, or political influence, have had near exclusive access to most of the variables which determine resource distribution. Don't get me wrong, I am not here to place blame. Society has always lived and died on "bread and circuses." What we the people need to realize is that thanks to the wonders of modern technology we don't need the middleman anymore.

With the ability to share knowledge globally in real time comes a better informed, better educated, and better trained populace. For the first time in recorded history the human species has a means for a fair and democratic distribution of responsibility and reward. With a more evenly distributed level of control over resources, we can stop handing our resources over to the corporations and governments that are then charged with the task of designing, building, and packaging our destiny for us just to sell it back to us on a sliding scale. (Now 25% more sensation of being victimized, free!)

To give an example of a resource that has been denied us, I give you the sham that is network and cable television. A few relatively enlightening channels and programs notwithstanding, I am pretty ashamed of what gets sold to us over "the people's airwaves." Just google "worst reality shows" and you'll see what I mean. Of course that is just the tip of the iceberg. People actually have to turn that crap on for it to infect them. Dont' get me started on my dad's Maury Povich addiction.

But what about those who try to get informed? 24-hour news networks suck and I think most people know it. I thank Jon Stewart for every montage he's every put together showing just how vacuous and/or misleading cable news tends to be. The fact that most news outlets and television stations are owned by major corporations that are busy selling us everything else we don't necessarily need is one of the most disconcerting aspects of our consumer culture. It's up to us to seek and provide better information to each other.

[/tangent]

So it's officially 7 days before we trade G Dub for Obama and honestly I couldn't be happier. There is simply no way the next four years will see worse leadership than the last four years, and I am comfortable with the man the country chose to lead. How does everyone nerdy enough to like this blog (or unfortunate enough to "stumble upon" [tm] it) feel about how close we got, in TWO THOUSAND FUCKING EIGHT, to electing a president that needs his wife to help him send an email?! (link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/11/mccain-admits-he-doesnt-k_n_106478.html).

But no, we got change. We got Obama. We got the almost polar opposite of John McCain and the hopefully now defunct era of neoconservative republicanism. This was not just a partisan affair, however. I don't even consider myself a democrat. As the youngest contender in the race I strongly feel Obama was the only contender on the right side of a socio-technologic-philosophic(al) generation gap. From his choice of Nobel Laureate and green technology genius Steven Chu to his innovative outreach efforts with Change.gov and Change.org (shady dodging of the legalization question notwithstanding), Barack Obama has so far done much to prove to me that he is truly going about things differently.

I'll give the skeptics their due and (mostly) agree that for now it's all rhetoric. But I just can't help but find myself a few steps beyond cautious optimism. What a new and refreshingly different experience.