Any more wild ideas?

My dad was living in Indonesia. He had bought me a digital camera, and on my birthday, I took pics with it, and sent them to him the very next day. He wrote back to me, saying that this is indeed a wonder of technology that I can share the experiences of your birthday just the next day, even though I am so far away. He then recounted a story he had heard of his father's wedding. This grandfather (my great-grand father) had arranged for a "bioscope" show in their village for his son's wedding (being a big landowner and all that). The simple villagers were amazed at the viewing and were heard to remark that "this is not human doings, it has to involve magic somehow!"


Imagine what they would say about the technology that we take for granted today. GPS navigation systems in cars, 3-inch long devices that let you talk around the world, play games, make payments, read books, listen to music, take pictures! These things are probably beyond the wildest imagination of a commoner of a 100 years ago. So today when I was having a conversation with two friends about what would be "improbable" or "wild" technology by my standards, it set me thinking. And blogging.


Here are some ideas off the top of my head (Its possible a lot of these are being researched currently and may already be in the pipeline for the near future, and I just don't know about it!)

  • A chip implanted in the brain that you could just upload information to (a la Matrix).
  • ESP-like non-verbal communication between people (maybe using the same implants used in the above idea)
  • Teleportation, a la Star Trek (Beam me up, Scotty!)
  • A visual overlay provided by some external device that would give you information about the objects, place or people you are looking at (a la Terminator, or "Psycohistorical Crisis")
I guess all of these have been inspired by movies and sci-fi books. Anyone else with any original ideas? Please post them! I shall include them in this list (with attributions, of course)

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about Hire a Clone - Have a boring meeting to go to... let the clone do the dirty work while you chill out

Maven's Atelier said...

This is my list :

1.Probably a wallpaper air conditioner,there is patent for this in the US PTO

2.shoes which would act as skates ,would act as the ice movers ,like the swimmer leg flaps etc .

3.small capsules of food ,like one for one plate of biryani etc :) ,this one is inspired from a telugu movie

Anonymous said...

Well there is no iota of doubt that technology has grown beyond imagination and at this rate there would be a day when u can make ur presence physically present somewhere.Well , to those who dont agree with me , if a bioscope was a magical phenomina to a villager of the past generation, someday the generation that follows us might say that we had thought of the things of their times as a godly act.Hitting the point,i am obssesed with these electronic gadgets .If i peep back to see, there were so many good things that have stopped bcas of this magical devices .....
1.A/C, what deal , we close ourselves in a room and sleep.Gone are the days when families would go to the terrace to get a gentle breeze that sweeps us of all worries.
2.Cellphones ,nonstop nuisance.I hardly get time for myself, i love solitude and this gadget glaringly get me out of my personal space .Well, dont tell me that i can choose to switch of the phone.
3.emails, exchange message at the press of a button. Gone are the days when i used to treasure the letters written by mother, i hardly get any now.Gone are those bful days when u will keep ur ears open to hear the cycle bell of ur postman.

The list is endless ..... hmm, not to deny the gr8 good things these gadgets bring, but somehow cant help complaing against them too.

Tanushree said...

@Vijay,

Yes I guess it is human nature to resist any change that does not jingle in the pockets. But, as Heraclitus said some 2500 years ago, "Nothing is permanent except change". Since it is inevitable, why not adapt to it (of course, we all have) and have fun with it (this may not be true for everyone).

Kiran Golla said...

One can get some really crazy ideas like
. Behavioural Engineering through chips implanted in the brain. Next time you feel like saying "what the f---" - your mouth gets sealed..

. Artificial food ( a la matrix) which is nothing but some concentrated protein which is given taste, texture of a plum cake...

COME ON NOW WHERE ARE WE GOING. A Technology freak, geek - though i am .. I am scared that some day technology will take over our lives

Anshuman said...

Okay fellas, lets get Practical , here is an idea which I first read of in my final year, and a friend of mine was working on it as a project, to devise working models -

The concept is that of "Body Area Network"

-- certain objects, mostly personal, will store information about you. For example, ur watch, belt, purse
-- these objects will be connected with each other by bluetooth, and will work on a knowledge sharing basis
-- so at any point of time, these have formed a "body area network", configured among themselves
-- when an object moves away, it will get detached from the network. But the network will rely on the other nodes to retrieve information
-- when a new object comes into the range of the network, it gets connected to the network and becomes a new node (member) of the network

Advantages -
-- Forgot your purse home ? dont worry, all information and validation also sits in your watch, belt etc

-- bright idea : the policemans pistol forms a body area network with his badge and belt. If someone steals his pistol, his pistol will be locked as it is outside the network validation area. In other words, his pistol can be fired only by him

-- now apply this to disable cars, unless you have validation proofs ! did we just stopped car theft ? ;)


Howzzat !?

mehul said...

hi tanu,

you promised to update your blog if the self-feeding system sets in ... i guess it has ...

waiting to hear more from you ...

Anshuman said...

self-feeding system ... uh .. what ? :-/

Tanushree said...

Heh, I had promised him that I would post a new blogpost everytime I got a substantial number of comments on the last post. I guess 10 is a huge number! Don't worry Mehul, you'll get ur post...

CassAmino said...

How about being able to perceive every single stimuli, contrasting the fact that brain actually filters out 99%(hypothetically) of stimuli, for it cannot handle everything, I mean how about activating the brain to perceive the actual state of reality rather than the partial perception we are capable of? What would everything be like then?

Good to know you, have been introduced to your blog by Poorna Shashank...

Cheers

Nanda

Anonymous said...

:)
It might be even far more advanced than that.
--Alpha0

Mita said...

Hi Tanusree,
I got to your blog from Aparna's website. Liked reading your blog.
I thought I was the only one who thinks abt such hi-tech imaginative stuff. I was thrilled to see I have partners out there:)

Anshuman said...

** claps to get some attention **

okay enough of the space odyssey - how about a new post ? :-D