Researchers Push Implanted User Interfaces 84
MatthewVD writes "A new, user interface-enabled generation of electronics that you wear under your skin could be used for convenience, or even pleasure, rather than medical reasons. Scientists at Autodesk Research in Toronto have implanted electronics with user buttons, pressure sensors and LEDs under the skin of a cadaver's arm and wrapped in artificial skin. The electronics could buzz you when you have an appointment, carry memory cards with data, or connect you in a social network with others wearing electronics."
Is it practical? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it better to have external gizmos? Electronic thingies tend to break, be obsolete, be hacked, be stolen.
All of the above get a lil' worse when the stuff is right inside you.
All of this without the orwellian aspects taken into account.
Here it cums... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is it practical? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, it needs a whole new philosophy for gadgets. Works first time; long-term value; doesn't break easily; doesn't need digging out and updating every couple of days. It's worth having some implanted gadgets just to get the electronics industry thinking like that.
What about the future of copyrights? (Score:3, Insightful)
What happens to copyrights when you can "record" what you see or hear via implants? Does this mean if you walk into a theater you cannot remember/record what you've just seen or heard?
operation every two years (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The end result (Score:0, Insightful)
1. /equip "head" foilhat
2. Flying doesn't "practically" require DNA samples. You obviously don't get out much and just go with what you read online.
3. You're paranoid. There is a medium of truth in your words, but you're overstating your opinion as fact.
4. Until YOUR employer requires you to be implanted with something, you have no reason to act like it's the end of days as it relates to your paycheck. There will always be demand for manual labor that pays well enough and if you can't get by with a so-so paycheck, you certainly don't deserve a nice one.
5. You're a "sheep," believe it or not. Jumping on the bandwagon and freaking out about things that haven't and may or may not happen. It's one thing to speculate and to react to current events, it's another thing to worry about something that isn't widespread enough to matter.
could buzz when you have an appointment ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I once had a boss who had raging and untreated ADHD. Opening up my calendar in the morning felt like emotional abuse. The last straw was when we got new phones with a walkie-talkie feature. I couldn't get twenty consecutive minutes to myself to get anything done without being interrupted by the damn ba-beep and having to respond to whatever popped into his head.
I can imagine a few useful applications of implanted technology, like keeping all your medical records handy. But even those are only acceptable if you have a simple and fool-proof way of stopping someone from activating them when you didn't want them too. The ease of getting away from a gadget is a pretty important feature, but it's one we take for granted because up until now we *haven't* implanted gadgets in our body. We're understandably more focused on making stuff easier to carry than on getting rid of it. The desire to implant technology because of the current inconvenience of carrying devices around is like a guy who is five feet tall wishing he was twelve feet tall. If his wish were granted pretty soon he'd see the advantages of being only five feet tall.
The only really killer app for a technology like this is enslaving people. Justice Louis Brandeis, in his landmark paper on a legal right to privacy, defined it as: