I have read science fiction since before I could grok and one of the most common "future" technologies used in the stories has been wetware: brain implants. William Gibson pushed the concept far into the mainstream with his cyberpunk novels such as Neuromancer and Count Zero. The Matrix movies took it to an extreme. But that is all fiction, what is reality?

2002

I read an article in wired way back in 2002 [linky - Vision Quest] that talked about curing blindness through wetware.  It described a brain implant technology being developed at UCLA and other locations that put a diode under the patient's skull adjacent to their visual center of the brain and cured (partially, and with side effects) their blindness.

True wetware.

The side effects of seizures not-withstanding, this was an incredible breakthrough.

But where are we today?

BCI - circa 2007

Brain Computer Interfaces [BCI] is the official name given to this discipline and there is a lot of progress.

Check out this video from Berlin:

Now that isn't wetware, but it is BCI.

Brain implants are going to help quadriplegics

And if you have any doubt as to the applicability of such technology check out this video:

Now THAT is wetware, but it is only a first step.

Here is an article about the volunteer in the above video. Wired 2005 [linky - Mind Control]

Nagle, 25, is the first patient in a controversial clinical trial that seeks to prove brain-computer interfaces can return function to people paralyzed by injury or disease.

Convergence

We have convergence happening here as well. DARPA has initiated an effort to create breakthrough prosthetic limbs [linky]. Limbs that are radically better, have actual touch and feel and human reflexes. The example I've heard it explained like is Luke Skywalker's replacement hand at the end of Empire Strikes Back.

We are on the verge of true Cyborg technologies here. And at the speed at which the discoveries are being made, how fast scientists and engineers were able to improve year over year in the last DARPA challenge [linky - driverless cars], we could be in for quite a rollercoaster.

So we have breakthroughs coming in BCI, breakthroughs in prosthetics and breakthroughs coming in vision and hearing sensors. All of this is converging rapidly. You don't hear much about it, but we are going to wake up in just 5 or 10 years with capabilities far exceeding what we have today.

The Future

In the future will we all be hooked together into a World Wide Mind? In the video below some of the leading futurists talk about what might be in store of us. I don't hear much cautionary discussion coming from them. They speak of the benefits of the World Wide Mind, what about the drawbacks?

• the obliteration of privacy
• the potential for predators to abuse the technology
• the threat of a computer virus to physically harm people
• electrocution
• dependence on external power and support for your survival
• weather (lightning)
• more...

Yet one more example of accelerating change.

We think things are not changing because we are unable to see them in the context of time. Humans live in the present. If we were to back up to 1990 and view the current state of this field of research it would look incredible. And yet here, with us being so close to it all, we don't see it, we don't talk about it, we accept it as the norm.

It is not the norm. It is revolutionary.

The crippled will walk and the blind will see.

References:

Wikipedia:
Brain Implants - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_implant

Seeing what a cat sees:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/6/20/111815/063

bionic eye
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6368089.stm
http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2007/01/second_sight_me.html

Retina implant
http://www.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=bionic-eye.htm&url=http://www.optobionics.com/home.asp

Department of Biomedical Engineering at USC is working on a variety of different projects including retina implants, not quite true wetware  but related.[linky]

You probably don't even notice but here is a good example.

Two Gigabyte MP3 player circa 1997:

...eh...

Two Gigabyte MP3 player circa 2001:

Two Gigabyte MP3 player circa 2007:

Gadget Universe - The Ultimate Smallest MP3 Player (2GB)

Two Gigabyte MP3 Player circa 2011:

I'd like to generate some feedback for this post:There are no new inventions only improvements. and I thought a poll would be a good way to start.

Cast your vote and then head down to the other post to make a comment.

So I have a friend, let's call him "M" who on the whole is a pretty technical guy: Mechanical Engineer, worked in the software industry, worked for a couple of startups, etc.  He also generally likes technology and gets the benefit of what it has done and is doing for society.

He has made an interesting argument to me that I find hard to refute.

"M"s argument goes about like this:

There have been only a few true scientific breakthroughs since WWII that truly have been impactful on our lives.  I include true new technology, not improvements on existing technology.

My candidates include:

• Transistor
• Integrated circuit (although this could be argued as an improvement on the transistor)
• Laser
• Some medicines, particularly the pill
• Human (and others) genome work

I can’t think of any others.  There certainly have been improvements on existing technology galore, but little new science that has made a difference.

Pretty good stimulus for thought and discussion, isn’t it?

"M"

Ps.  Things like nuclear energy, rockets, radio, television, telephones, vaccines, antibiotics, surgery, airplanes, cars, central heat, fresh water, sewage treatment, computers, etc. all were invented/developed prior or during WWII.

Now admittedly, he does narrow the playing field with the constraint of "new" and "impactful". The way I would argue against his point of view would be with a two pronged approach

1. Find the precursors to the inventions he already listed.
2. Argue the in the new world, the chief benefit comes from extending technology and not creating new out of whole cloth.

Assignment For the reader

But If we go from his starting point I have a question for the audience, an assignment.

Excluding the list above, what new inventions have had an impact on society? Since WW2? Since 1960? Since 1995?

Make it new and make it impactful. I'll be doing a follow up post or two on this subject because it is fascinating. What if there has been no new invetions? Does it matter? Do we still need them? Does the law of accellerating returns require new inventions? Are new scientists and engineers and entrepreneurs still looking for anything truly "new"?