Vanishing Point

Have you seen the rumours about the Mac Expo, Macworld, starting today? They're saying there's going to be an iPod shuffle unveiled with an actual screen, and a 1GB Nano. Oh, and in Tech news Vodafone and Sony have launched a third-generation mobile phone radio service in the UK, and the new ROKR phone has a music and radio player in it that works better than iTunes did in the old one. Intel have just unveiled a suite of CPUs for desktop computers clocked at 3.6GHz. There's a 800 MHz laptop out there measuring just 1.4 by 9.1 by 6.2 inches and weighing in at 2.2lb...or 1kg for the metrically minded.

Which is all very impressive, but where, if I might ask a question, is all this going?

Down would be a good answer. Smaller smaller smaller and faster faster faster.

And the smaller things get, the more portable and powerful, the capabilities of formerly discrete devices are growing so much that their roles start to overlap. Your camera sits inside your telephone. Your telephone moves on from having customisable ringtones to having a music player. Your computer enables telephone-like conversations and video conferencing with other computers over the Internet. Nearly all cellphones have internet capability, even if basic.

The technology improves and shrinks and as its capabilities increase its function blurs, boundaries disappear, and the number of devices cropping up all over that do more than they used to, more of what other things do...is rising fast. Of course that blurring is pointing at a single future device with the flexibility and power to do whatever we want it to.

This device won't be a complete stranger to any of us, because we're all looking at something like it right now. But what will it be like?

So...small.

But what are the limits of small? I saw a 1GB keyring memory card the size of a mobile phone SIM card the other day, and miniaturization is going to continue apace, but as the big lumbering beings that we are, we have certain limitations on what we can touch, see, feel and use.
We need output, and as we've spent all this time and energy on evolving eyes, a visual display would be hard to usurp as the output format of choice. But who needs a screen?
I was surprised when these ear-clip telephones started turning up and spreading. It seems that people aren't THAT opposed to having something that's becoming an essential part of modern life sitting on the side of their heads. So if we assume we can hitch a lift on the ear, could we see an all-in-one device with a Near-Eye Display?
...or direct-to-eye projection from a fibre wand protruding about as far out from the face as current Britney-style headsets do?

Another thing we organically evolved beasts need is a way of inputting information and instructions into our device, meaning that our hypothetical future gadget is strung out between our hands and our eyes...assuming we still want to use our hands.

Voice recognition is getting better and better, but we're organic, personable beings, and we like our communication to be the same way. No one likes those voice-rec phone systems, even if they are good. Until we can say to our devices, "Oh, open that attachment thing Gerry sent me the other day, would you?" (and with a device that can learn to recognise your usual syntax and even your way of thinking and the associations you make, why shouldn't it be able to?) we're going to want to use our hands.
Unless we're on the other side of the room from the device or doing something else...it's quicker to use our hands than to say that sentence.

And then there is this direction. If you haven't the time to read the article, it's about how a computer plugged into a monkey's brain was at first used to map the patterns of brain activity caused by the monkey moving a joystick to control a prosthetic arm to obtain a reward. When the computer had the 'language' of the brain activity down pat, they took away the joystick and let the monkey control the arm with its brain. To begin with, sans joystick, the monkey continued moving its arm as though the joystick was still there...and then learned that it wasn't necessary.
If you really want to freak yourself out, there's a flash animation here.

How far will that technology take us? You can move from the happy application of paraplegic tool control to widespread brain-computer interfaces in one easy Sci-Fi step, but how long will that take? And how far is it from being happy to clip your cellphone to the side of your head to carrying your PC in there?
Is it going to be in-skull implants communicating with external devices via wi-fi? Or will we happily pack the lot into the nasal cavity?
What if you got a cold?
Subcutaneous RFID for identification and access purposes is one thing, especially when the chip is tiny enough to sit in the skin on the back of your hand and RFID doesn't require a power source...but how far are we willing to integrate?

I can't help but start to feel there's a certain 1950s element to this post, in a 'In the year 2000 we will all eat pills and take flying cars to work' sort of way, but seriously...how far off can I be?

If it lost the display, got a hundred times smaller and ran off your body's energy supply, would you implant your iPod in your ear? For security's sake?