Brain-pacemakers are being used to treat patients suffering from
severe depression and the potentials of the technology are being
expanded on. What happens when brain stimulation is safe and not
only reserved to people suffering from disorders?
“Brain pacemakers” are used to treat people who suffer from
epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, clinical depression and other
diseases. The pacemaker is a medical device that is implanted into
the brain to send electrical signals into the tissue.
For those of you who don’t know what they are the paragraph
above is the first sentence from the wikipedia article and as you
can see the treatment the technology provides is quite vast and
immediate.
Lets look down the winding road a little bit and consider what a
world it would be like if these pacemakers become easy to implant
and remove self maintaining and powering. A nanobot for
stimulation?! what scientist would dare consider such a thing.
Well i found an article a while back in wired which had this to
claim:
Implant Achieves Female Orgasm
One woman undergoing treatment for back pain may have
discovered a cure for the thousands of woman frustrated by the
inability to achieve orgasm. While Dr. Stuart Meloy was putting an
electrode into the woman’s spine in an attempt to ease her chronic
pain, he not only reduced her back pain, but gave her an unexpected
– but delightful – side-effect. (cont.)
“She said, ‘You’re going to have to teach my husband how to
do that’,” Meloy, an anesthesiologist and pain specialist in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, said. The discovery is published in
Wednesday’s issue of New Scientist.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips will soon be used in
stores at point-of-sale checkout to replace cashiers. Sensors can
detect purchases and automatically charge your ATM or credit card – or direct you to a cash machine.
Merchants eliminate cashiers, and in our competitive world, some of
the savings gets passed on to customers in lower prices.
Wal-Mart recently ordered 100 of its suppliers to place
RFID tags on pallets and cases. They plan
to start with inventory control, and evolve into this new
technology over the coming years. Target, Home Depot, Kroger,
Safeway, and most other stores are expected to follow soon.
This revolutionary identification system also gives merchants
more security. If a certain Beverly Hills store had installed
RFID tags, a famous actress would not
have been caught shoplifting. Sensors would have detected her
purchases as she walked out the door, and automatically charged her
credit card – no harm no foul.
RFID chips can also be implanted in
our body. Whether it’s your little one’s first day walking home
from the bus stop alone, or the millionth time she’s wandered too
far from the house, a chip under her collarbone reports her exact
location. You chart her every move. This allows her to become more
independent, and it gives you greater peace of mind.
This is not as futuristic as it sounds. Driven by 9/11, the
Department of Homeland Security, in its US-VISIT program, is
testing biometrics in a $15 billion attempt to build a “virtual
border” around the country. This high-priority project will use
facial recognition, fingerprint, hand geometry, and iris and voice
recognition in an attempt to separate bad guys from good guys.
The latest in the foresighted line-up of Singularity Summit speakers, Justin Rattner, VP and CTO of Intel, just spoke about achieving programmable matter. The possibility is there, especially when you consider where he sees the processor in the next decade.
“We think several terrabytes/second per chip is well within our possibility within 4-5 years,” said Rattner. The example he cited was in the vehicle design field. Model cars, real physical ones, could be interactive as well as modified.
You enter the supermarket, grab an electronic cart that recognizes you from your touch, toss in some bags and begin shopping. The monitor on your ‘smart cart’ displays products, price, and total amount spent; and even subtracts items returned to the shelf.
As you wind through the aisles, the cart’s voice recognizes products you’re running low on, and offers special discounts just for you. When finished shopping, simply tap a ‘chipped’ finger indicating payment preference and walk out the door – no more lines or grocery clerks to deal with. On exit, select an option to deactivate or encrypt all chips, which protects your privacy by preventing evildoers from tracking you or your merchandise.
After putting items away at home, the milk might say, “I expire in nine days, would you like a 24-hour reminder”, or the hat you purchased may say, “Hey Dick, why not wear me now, you know how great I make you look”.
By 2012, experts believe the above scenarios could be happening at stores everywhere.
Milwaukee futurist David Zach agrees that voice-enabled chips will increase efficiency. Clothes could remark, “Don’t wash me with colors”; cars may cry out, “I need oil”, and a glass might tell the bartender, “he’s had enough”.
Wearable computer maker Vocollect believes their voice-enabled machines can team up with RFID (Radio Frequency ID) chips used to identify items, and create an enormous array of exciting applications.
