How many years till? Is it posible?

[madnak]

Oh yeah - videos and photographs, movie downloads (watch it on the train!), enhanced range of colors (infravision on command), ability to change eye color on demand, to choose between various styles (from pure realism, undetectable as bionics to a casual observer, to extreme stylized designs), ability to sleep through a meeting with your eyes open...

The more I think about it, the better it sounds.

I'll wait until we have microbatteries and nano-wireless and such first, though. The early models would probably be military issue or something, and come with bulky power packs and maybe antennae...

[Metric]

Think of the societal consequences of this thing, though. I pass you in the hall and say "guess what I saw the other day?" You say "what?" I instantly access yesterday's visual memory file and wirelessly send it to you in 15 seconds. You watch it and go "whoa, that's crazy." Then I go down stairs and get a cheesburger while you use the drinking fountain and head to your lecture.

[madnak]

Head to the lecture? It'll just be piped in!

[malorum]

[ QUOTE ]

I anticipate a strong exponential growth in biological knowledge in the first part of the twenty-first centaury, to dwarf the computer revolution of the last fifty years.

[/ QUOTE ]

Preaching on your religious convictions. I'm impressed.
I believe SENS is a kind of theological discussion group for this particular meme.

[Metric]

I was going to say "head to the restroom," but then I thought that might imply something weird about the nature of what I sent to you, so "lecture" was the most generic thing that came to mind.

[malorum]

[ QUOTE ]
But that’s just me guessing.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not guesswork. Faith or prayer pehaps, but "guessing" is not in line with the general rhetorical power of your post.

[purnell]

This:

[ QUOTE ]
How long till people could have something like a USB port somewhere on their body and something like a flashdrive could be put in it and the person would "know" all the information on the flash drive.

[/ QUOTE ]

is a completely different problem than this:

[ QUOTE ]
My point is that the "hard part" is all to do with the artificial retina itself, which is even now about to go into production. After you have the artificial retina, you can in principle send whatever images to it that you want -- there's absolutely no reason to restrict them to real-time images gathered by a camera. In particular, computer generated images of any data the user likes seems the obvious generalization. You could quite literally be plugged wirelessly into the internet yourself, if the computer was stored internal to your body.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree the second device is relatively simple. It merely takes the place of a book or a computer screen. The proposed device would functionally replace the brain itself. That's what I think will take a long time if indeed it is ever done.

[madnak]

I agree. But an independent database that can be accessed at any time with no effort would be something. Just think if you could instantaneously access wikipedia while talking to your friends.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
I'll wait until we have microbatteries and nano-wireless and such first, though.

[/ QUOTE ]

Garments that are photovoltaic cells/storage devices? Get the efficiency down to just as much as you need today for your Vitamin D. 15 seconds of sunlight, and you're good to go for a month. You'd need an excuse for fresh air and sunlight.

Say goodbye to paper money. Seamless EFT. A level of protective redundancy 'cause everybody's wired in.

The Walled City. Huh.

[Metric]

It might not be quite as different from "photographic memory" as you suggest. More mentally cumbersome to access perhaps, but it certainly begins to blur the distinction. It's all information "stored in your head" that you can access any time, any where.

One can even go farther and imagine sophisticated mathematical programs run by the computer -- a super efficient version of Mathematica accessed directly by your brain and interfaced with visually... I think it would change a lot.