You 2.0

An upgraded version of You might incorporate—literally incorporate—access to augmented reality overlays, a direct brain to Internet connection, and LED (light-emitting diode) tattoos.

Augmented reality displayed on a cell phone is an application that’s here already, however primitive it might be by comparison with mature versions of the technology that will come along in another two or three years.

But that’s just the beginning. For some people, it will be considered preferable to have that same information—and more—available not through a hand-held device, but in a heads-up display that projects directly in front of your field of vision. One way to do that would be through a special pair of eyeglasses, but an even more sophisticated approach would be to build the necessary circuitry into your high-tech contact lenses.

A contact lens that harvests radio waves to power an LED is paving the way for a new kind of display. The lens is a prototype of a device that could display information beamed from a mobile device.

Realising that display size is increasingly a constraint in mobile devices, Babak Parviz at the University of Washington, in Seattle, hit on the idea of projecting images into the eye from a contact lens.

One of the limitations of current head-up displays is their limited field of view. A contact lens display can have a much wider field of view. “Our hope is to create images that effectively float in front of the user perhaps 50 cm to 1 m away,” says Parviz.

What’s amusing is that this article makes it sound as if Mr. Parviz is the first one ever to come up with the idea. Not doubting the value or impressiveness of his work, of course, but the concept of importing data through a contact lens for heads-up display is decades old. Transhumanists—and visionary science fiction writers before them—have long looked forward to this possibility.

Once this is achieved, you might then have access to all the information currently available through your cell phone not only at your fingertips, but at your eye-tips, so to speak.

You could see this:

Or maybe this:

But why not take another step beyond and instead of having the data routed and accessed on the outside of your body, make a direct mind-computer interface, allowing You 2.0 to “see” everything on the Web inside your head!

Although this is still firmly in the realm of science fiction, it is moving gradually closer to reality day by day. In fact, according to a recent article at PhysOrg:

Computer chip maker Intel wants to implant a brain-sensing chip directly into the brains of its customers to allow them to operate computers and other devices without moving a muscle.

Intel believes its customers would be willing to have a chip implanted in their brains so they could operate computers without the need for a keyboard or mouse using thoughts alone. The implant could also be used to operate devices such as cell phones, TVs and DVDs.

The chip is being developed at Intel’s laboratory in Pittsburgh, USA. It would sense brain activity using technology based on FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging). The brain sensing chips are not yet available, but Intel research scientist Dean Pomerleau thinks they are close.

Admittedly, having a chip implanted in your brain that allows you to turn the TV on or off using the power of thought is not the same as having an integrated Web browser in your skull, but it does seem like a significant step in that direction.

And after we’ve reached that point, when You 2.0 can read blogs, surf for porn, or watch the news inside your head, what happens if you want to share some of what you’re seeing with someone else?

One way to do it could be like we do now, by sending a link to that other person. But another way might be to actually display what you want to share right on your skin, via an LED tattoo:

Animated and programmable LED tattoos connected to your brain? You could show off your latest Flash animations, watch TV on your arm, or have a built-in PDA screen. The possibilities are endless. Perhaps more than simply a fashion statement, you could use such LED tattoos to display medical information about your body such as blood-sugar readings.

Wonders, marvels, medical miracles, life-enhancing discoveries—it is an amazing new world that You and Me 2.0 are entering. Now all we have to do is figure out what the downsides might be, and how to avoid them.