Imagine everyone with contact lenses that are hooked to computers in their pockets, with an audio/video input that recognizes faces/voices and can give you information about the person you are interacting with that only you can see and hear…

uweek.org | Bionic eyes: Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision | University Week, Vol. 25, No. 12 | University of Washington

Engineers at the UW have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.

“Looking through a completed lens, you would see what the display is generating superimposed on the world outside,” said Babak Parviz, a UW assistant professor of electrical engineering…
 Drivers or pilots could see a vehicle’s speed projected onto the windshield. Video game companies could use the contact lenses to completely immerse players in a virtual world without restricting their range of motion. And for communications, people on the go could surf the Internet on a midair virtual display screen that only they would be able to see.

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The times they are a changin…

Some lament the loss of innocence that human beings have experienced through advances in technology or encounter with technologically advanced cultures. They sometimes think that the solution is to protect themselves by shutting out the advances and shielding others from their effects.

I think these changes are more like a tidal wave.  Your real choices are only 1) learn to surf the wave or 2) be crushed (or increasingly inconvenienced by the way.  I suggest surfing. 

The latest news towards this end is cloning and bio-technology in general.  Although Gattaca was a questionable movie, in many ways, it speaks to very predictable consequences of our current technologies. Again, I suggest surfing…

FT.com / Home UK / UK - Human cloning work advances

Human cloning research took another step forward yesterday when US scientists reported the production of three embryos cloned from adult skin cells.

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