The first technology I want to discuss is called SixthSense. It is being developed by MIT’s media lab, and focuses on augmented reality and interactive projection screens.
The two videos posted below describe the technology in detail, along with its possibilities.
The second technology I want to discuss, keeping SixthSense in mind, is microchip contact lenses.
In 2008, these lens were tested on rabbits. They would allow for users to seemlessly view screens that no one else could see, and potentially even interact with them. As one website suggested:
Adding displays directly onto the lenses, visible to the wearers but no one else, could project critical information onto windshields for drivers or pilots or superimpose computer images onto real-world objects for training exercises. And with a wireless connection to the Internet, the lenses could allow bus or train riders to surf the Web on virtual screens suspended in midair or pave the way for gaming enthusiasts to immerse themselves in virtual worlds with no restrictions on their range of motion (although perhaps adding a further nuisance for fellow commuters). —Frontiers on MSNBC
But to me, the real significance is combining this technology. Unlike with questions of altering the self, this radically changes how we interact with our environment without putting anyone under the knife.
Imagine how this could change concepts of privacy, where someone could see the meta data, and pull up the facebook page, of new acquaintances without disturbing them with a visual cloud stream. Suddenly information which was once private about us: our interests, our friends, our recent thoughts, could be as visible as the color of our hair.
I don’t want to get into all the other possibilities here, for implications are endless, but I wanted to bring these two technologies to light and encourage you all to think about them and, whether with trepidation or excitement, dream.