I've been doing a lot of thinking about wearable PCs and I don't think language translation is the coolest app. Imagine if your lapel pin monitored everything people said to you, and then you could ask it questions like, "What did my girlfriend tell me to buy at the store?" The ultimate memory aid. It would make the "To Do List" on all those palm tops obsolete. Or combined these gizmos with ambiguous computing. Imagine your new in town and you ask you wrist watch what's the best Chinese restaurant in town? It talks to all the other wrist watches in town and see which Chinese restaurant has been do the most business. Then ask it which is the least crowded and it would see how many wrist watches were in each restaurant and report back to you. Really there are so many cool things you could do with machines like these that I could write about it all day.
I seem to be hearing a lot of people talk about modern genetics and biotech and usually they use some Frankenstein metaphor and end the article with some obtuse reference to how this is a big moral debate and how we much be careful. But, I have yet to see anyone bring up any specific problems other them, "people might do bad with this knowledge." I'm not sure there has been a single fact in human history that people haven't done bad with. This is powerful stuff, biotech. You could use it to completely revolutionize the world in a billion and two ways and you could also use it to make weapons and terrible social conditions. The real question isn't about God, or people playing God or God play people. The real question is should we do this or not. Does the possible good out weight the possible harm? And truth be told we don't have a choice. Because its going to happen no matter what you and I say. If it can be done some one will try it. But these statements apply to all new technologies. My point is unless you have a specific problem with some new piece of biotech information don't end you articles with ambiguous negative statements.
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I've been doing a lot of thinking about wearable PCs and I don't think language translation is the coolest app. Imagine if your lapel pin monitored everything people said to you, and then you could ask it questions like, "What did my girlfriend tell me to buy at the store?" The ultimate memory aid. It would make the "To Do List" on all those palm tops obsolete. Or combined these gizmos with ambiguous computing. Imagine your new in town and you ask you wrist watch what's the best Chinese restaurant in town? It talks to all the other wrist watches in town and see which Chinese restaurant has been do the most business. Then ask it which is the least crowded and it would see how many wrist watches were in each restaurant and report back to you. Really there are so many cool things you could do with machines like these that I could write about it all day.
I seem to be hearing a lot of people talk about modern genetics and biotech and usually they use some Frankenstein metaphor and end the article with some obtuse reference to how this is a big moral debate and how we much be careful. But, I have yet to see anyone bring up any specific problems other them, "people might do bad with this knowledge." I'm not sure there has been a single fact in human history that people haven't done bad with. This is powerful stuff, biotech. You could use it to completely revolutionize the world in a billion and two ways and you could also use it to make weapons and terrible social conditions. The real question isn't about God, or people playing God or God play people. The real question is should we do this or not. Does the possible good out weight the possible harm? And truth be told we don't have a choice. Because its going to happen no matter what you and I say. If it can be done some one will try it. But these statements apply to all new technologies. My point is unless you have a specific problem with some new piece of biotech information don't end you articles with ambiguous negative statements.