today I want the internet to have my babies.

Reason number one:

(found via dizzy88)

Reason number two:

Jim Mielke’s wireless blood-fueled display is a true merging of technology and body art. At the recent Greener Gadgets Design Competition, the engineer demonstrated a subcutaneously implanted touch-screen that operates as a cell phone display, with the potential for 3G video calls that are visible just underneath the skin.

Rest of the article here

32 thoughts on “today I want the internet to have my babies.

  1. OMG! Want one!

    The first application for that technology that I could think of was a tattoo of the prime number shitting bear.

  2. as retarded as that tattoo display is, i ask you this.

    who’s gonna want a piece of lo-grade digital trash like that in their arm ten years from now? it wont be chic at all since by then we’ll have plasma screen ass implants that run on farts which will monitor the amount of blood in your stool…and besides that, when you want to upgrade,how’s it going to be possible without gross scarring?

    but then again, some people are into various aspects of tribal trendy scarring, so perhaps this is a 2 in 1 for those folks.

    i wish people would spend more of their time making useful inventions.

    • I was confused as to why they’re aiming at the OMG-New-Way-To-Use-Your-Phone thing myself, but it’s the idea of how it’s integrated that gets me. It’s a new way of powering, consolodating. And because it’s touch-screen and blue-tooth it’s not just wank material.

      So my question is this: just because eventually there will be something better, don’t we need this step to get there?

      • Cell phones stopped being cell phones while most people are not looking. Sure, people tend to think of them as “cell phones” but in reality, they’re just servers for personal area networks.

        So, it’s become easier to say “you can use this with your cellphone” than to say, “this will let you interface physically with the information cloud that you’re immersed in”.

        It’s easier to sell “this will let you see your calls” than “this will let you see your lover’s heartbeat glowing on your skin while you dance in separate clubs 1000 miles apart”.

        And sure, there will be a drastically better version 6 months after something like this hits street. But, as my old coach used to say “you can tell who really played the game from their scars”. Well, I don’t know about you, but for me, the concrescence we’re witnessing/creating with the realization of the embodied internet is the only game in town. I’d rather have some scars and some imperfections than to still be waiting for someone to build my future for me.

        • ..have my babies.

          They will be cyborg babies and completely independant the moment they’re born, but you know what I mean..

        • That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all, well, month.

          We’ve had decent conversations in the past, I do wonder why you’re suddenly cropping up and being angsty.
          Be nice to my friends or piss off.

        • this has nothing to do with angst or “being nice”. i’m merely pointing out the obvious flaw in his/her logic is all. any assumptions of “niceness” or “nastiness” is projection from your POV and it was not implied by yours truly. i’m merely having a conversation (or trying to unless you OMG BAN ME lol)

          take it as you will.

        • then stop sitting on lj is not conversational, it’s troll-like.

          I don’t feel like banning you. I’m merely pointing out that I would rather you play nice or not at all. You should have the self-control to respect that without me having to taking action.

          At this point I’ll leave it up to to respond if he likes, or not.

        • i was merely saying that you can’t “build the future” as it were by sitting around leaving lj comments. since i have no pretensions of building any kind of future for anyone other than myself, i am blissfully exempt from the apparently scathing nature of my comment.

          i dont want you to assume that i sit around thinking “i hope willow or anyone else reading this will get offended when i make my opinion known”. i’m only writing my reaction. if you’d rather me edit myself so that the interweb continues to be a place full of love, snuggles, and NO ONE EVER making comments that disagree with the OP then i simply ask you to forsake /b/ forever.

          that is all.

        • “then stop sitting on lj”

          Because talking to people on a social networking thing. It stops getting things done. I’ve seen the light, thank you for your insightful wisdom and clarity.

          The only useless thing I’ve done on LJ today is surf back to this conversation and respond to you.

        • Dammit, Kevin, quit making it sound so APPEALING.

          Which, frankly, it is, I just have intense fears of needles and surgery, which goes a long way to why I have the knees of a 68 year old man.

      • you may need this first step to get to the future of cooler subcutaneous screens being implanted in people but it’s an ugly step and pretty lo tech so therefor not very impressive.

        beyond that i find it pretty sad that people would really need arm talk screens instead of say, something that would stop epileptic seizures…but you know me, i’m all about substance and function over style.

        • two counter-arguments…

          …which I’m sure you will ignore or troll back at, depending on your mood and convenience.

          1. While doing research for several years on intention tremor and Parkinson’s in college, it was widely thought that a lot of tremor could be neutralized (or, at the very least, suppressed to the point of allowing functional movement) by what we called a ‘neurological pacemaker’. Lots of tremors seem to be caused by neurological/electrical feedback loops in which the brain overestimates its intended path then erroneously tries to auto-correct. Rinse and repeat until my grandfather’s hands shake so much he can’t sign his name, eat with any kind of utensil, etc, etc.

          Now granted, it’s been a few years since I’ve been published on the subject, but I daresay that a subcutaneous monitoring system that runs on the patient’s blood *and* can provide visual feedback both to the patient and their doctor *and* can provide touch-screen interactivity to allow for corrections to said monitoring is a GIANT STEP toward developing an aid that doesn’t require ridiculously invasive neurological surgery.

          …but I’m sure this development is still considered “pretty sad”.

          2. And while we’re on the subject of jaded, non-constructive criticism, can you reconcile the following statements for me?

          I can’t figure out how someone who is all about substance and function over style can, just prior to this admission, judge that this technology is an ugly step and pretty lo tech so therefor not very impressive.

          WTF? Even if we judge this article based solely on the most superficial, low-tech, awful commercial use of the product, it’s still A MOTHERFUCKING PHONE BUILT INTO YOUR ARM. Hell, I can remember when my landline, non-cordless phone didn’t reach across the room.

          The future of technology changes so rapidly these days that it’s dizzying to even sit and think about. It’s so dizzying, in fact, that I can see how it’s much easier to not be involved, act disinterested, and claim that something is retarded because it’s not as cool as the ten-years-down-the-road model that won’t exist without this one in the first place. And you know, now that I think about it some more, it’s also WAY easier to complain about people not inventing anything “useful” while at the same time admitting that your contribution to those inventions is sitting around wishing other people would do all the work for you, while at the same time conforming to your standards.

          Allow me to join the bandwagon, then: That tattoo-screen thing is retarded. I wish these assholes would just invent my flying car already.

        • Re: two counter-arguments…

          flying cars HUZZAH! i’m glad you have so sarcastically accepted my point instead of blindly praising this machine which doesn’t even exist.

          so,

          1. various members of my family have had the same issues as your grandfather and something that provides visual feedback for monitoring blood disorders would be a great progressive step. (even though parkinsons isn’t a blood disorder and this blood monitoring capability isn’t the main point of this imaginary vanity device and will therefor most likely have limited functionality if released to the general public). the phone aspect simply doesn’t interest me and i would laugh at phone-arm-people due to my own sense of humor and skeptical nature towards “new” technology that does the same old thing in new packaging. having a serious bug in some lame 3g device is one thing, but having it under your skin is another. this is just me though, so disregard at will.

          2. constructive criticism is overrated due to most people taking themselves WAY too seriously..that, and everyone being self professed “experts” on the subjects at hand. situations like this almost inevitably turn into petty ad hominem attacks on anyone who doesn’t agree with the majority. that being said, my point is this. all in all, i think this device is pretty tame since it’s main feature does nothing new besides putting a phone in your arm. big fucking deal. if it’s even invented, it ‘ll be another fad status symbol that will become last weeks news when a newer model comes out. this is one of the reasons i see no point in getting excited about it. perosnally, i wouldn’t want a phone built into my arm. that’s the real bottom line. after considering it, i could only think “for fuck’s sake, having a phone is annoying enough as it is, let alone if it’s stuck inside me”. besides my personal grievances, think of the negative aspects of it. we’ve all read william gibson. what happens when a black market arise for these new status symbols? will people cut off each other’s arms for these new “hot” items? does this seem far fetched? most likely,but on a more plausible level, what happens when someone drops your phone number on 4chan, or perhaps someone figures out a simple way to hack it?? christ, imagine the lulz.

          actually…nevermind. i take back everything i’ve said. i WHOLLY SUPPORT this device. when it’s security gets cracked and everyone’s having panic attacks over the instability of their cutting-edge-for-5-minutes arm phones, i will be forced to laugh just like i did when the iphone was cracked and people could control every aspect of the devices remotely via various exploits in the OS.

          i concede and announce this as a great invention. it will revolutionize the way we cause car wrecks and order pizza.

    • But that IS useful! It is useful in terms of AWESOME!

      You have a point on the upgrades, but the same could be said of any medical device. Yeah, this is technically unnecessary. Butbutbut. I am glad someone is doing it. And, as Willow says, this is a necessary stage to advance to whatever happens next. YOU don’t have to get one. But I don’t see a problem with someone else doing it, even if you personally do not find it aesthetically pleasing.

      So, what useful things are YOU inventing, then, Mr. Cranky-Trousers? Apart from unimpressive fart jokes?

      • irrelevant question and treated as such. if one needs to create hopelessly-close-to-chindogu inventions like these in order to have a valid opinion, then i guess we’d all need to stfu.

        • 1) I don’t know what chindogu means, and I am likely better off that way.

          2) I don’t think one does need to create things of this nature in order to have a valid opinion. I just wondered, since you expressed the wish that people would spend their time inventing useful things, whether, you know, you were doing that, or just bitching about someone else having invented something you personally didn’t like. 😛

        • more along the lines of the later,viv.

          i did once invent the ketchup popsicle, but it didn’t really catch on…BUT KETCHUP IS CHOCK-FULL OF LYCOPENE WHICH HELPS PREVENT CANCER.

          so yeah, i’m sort of almost like madame curie.

  3. I’ve always liked the idea of an sub-cute phone/wifi/voip/IM client, cochlear implant, and voice box electrodes with a processor that will convert sub-vocalized impulses into speech – it’s all current tech and the result is no less then telepathy.

    Just watch what you say under your breath when the blue-tooth is in promiscuous mode.

    • That is awesome, and I drool over it.

      However, I’m waiting for a time when we can have good voice-to-text and visa versa… my dyslexia has an effect on how I hear things, which is why I’ve always preferred face-to-face or textual interactions over phones.

      So what I’m really hoping for is something like this, but with a HUD and an ability to seamlessly convert between text and audio, depending on a person’s preference.

      • Those are cool – have you read Vernor Vinge’s Rainbow’s End I’m just a couple of chapters in, but he does a really good job describing this immersive interface.

        The APD article is fascinating too, I was diagnosed with all sorts of similar things when I was a kid, one pysch told my parents I would never lead a normal life – thank goodness he turned out to be correct!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.