Johnny Mnemonic is on his way...02:00 Feb 18 2008
Times Read: 713
For those interested... And mind you we are 14 years into the future from this first one...
From "DON'T FORGET your memory aide" John McCrone, The New Scientist Feb. 5th 1994 (A little Orwell anyone?)
Select excepts:
Despite its grand ambitions, EuroParc is an easy place to miss. A small, four-floor building standing anonymously among furniture shops and sandwich bars in a busy Cambridge street, the European offshoot of Xerox's famous Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in California looks more like the offices of a moderately successful solicitors' practice than a playground for blue-sky visionaries."
"At Rank Xerox's EuroParc laboratory in Cambridge, a team of 30 computer scientists, psychologists and sociologists have been working on an electronic memory prosthesis. Even as a crude prototype, Xerox's technology is impressive. More startling still is the glimpse it gives of a world to come: a world where computers are ubiquitous, pervasive - intimate, even. A world where computers begin to enclose us in an electronic womb, becoming seamless extensions of our own minds.
Mik Lamming, a senior researcher, rummages in what appears to be a pile of telephone pagers, looking for one with enough battery charge to demonstrate Forget-Me-Not, the laboratory's latest electronic memory project. While he searches, he talks about the potentially huge market for 'wearable' computers that augment human memory.
Far from shirking Big Brother questions, EuroParc has made them central to its work. Its director, Bob Anderson, says that the impact of such technology is likely to make preserving privacy fundamental to the design process. Safeguards must be built into the systems, not tacked on as afterthoughts.
Psychologist Victoria Bellotti is one of several EuroParc staff paying special attention to the privacy problems of intimate computing systems. She points out that the threat of workplace surveillance is not a new issue. Even in the 1930s, it was possible to build keystroke counters into typewriters and, of course, time clocks were common. More recently, itemized phone billing, computer audit trails and security cameras have all been seen as insidious steps towards tighter management control over employees. And Bellotti concedes that a memory prosthesis system creating a permanent record of a person's every action does raise the stakes somewhat."
"So all the EuroParc systems are designed with two safeguards in mind. The first is feedback: people should be continually aware of what information about them is being captured and to whom it is available. The second is control: people should be allowed to say what information can be captured about them and by whom - to the point of refusing to participate."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14119114.200
and if that isn't enough for your virgin eyes:
From the website:
http://www.braintec.info/
Think Braintec - Think bio-medical research, conserving memories, important discoveries.
Think Braintec - Think about a way of storing your most precious moments, safe for ever.
Think Braintec - Think about the ability to relive those memories at any chosen time. Think Braintec - Think about all the possible exploration to be done. What will be next?
In 2003, Braintec dissolved its relationship with the National Institute of Mental Health that funded its ten-year, $70 million founding grant. An increasing number of government and private grants and private contracts now support Braintec’s work. The DOE’s early support was a key element in Braintec’s success. DOE has also supported many other projects, including the development of our new M-Stores. In addition, the National Science Foundation has made grants totaling $19.7 million to analyze MEMES. We would like to thank these financiers for making our dream come true.
Uh, come on people wake up... Manchurian candidate anyone?
More to come...
COMMENTS
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Angelus
15:17 Feb 28 2008
..just to worry you further, "what about The Great Hadron Coolder?" time to worry time, or what??