There’s a serious issue that immortality raises…term limits. I don’t want Harry Reid stonewalling spending reform three centuries from now.
Self-correcting hearing aids that boost desired sounds, filter dangerous and unwanted sounds, and shift frequencies up or down from inaudible to audible ranges at need would be cool and seem very doable in the lab, and therefore as a wearable piece of the super-suit whenever Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark want it.
Infrared, “heat-mapped” vision might be nearly as good as “x-ray” vision in so far as seeing through clothing. As above, sensing and mixing other invisible frequencies and portraying in a visible spectrum a la “Geordie” on ST-TNG would be nearly as good as anything Clark Kent might do, and with a GoogleGlass like device may be very imminent. (Super hearing and super vision may be in the arms race to defeat Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak as soon as it’s deployed.)
A “memory chip” to offload and backup personal organic memories (or at least INDEX the silly ellusive things) into secure storage (Bujold’s Simon Illyan) would be nice, and would seem to be a good intermediate step between current intelligence, augmented intelligence, and artificial intelligence. Failing that, the “memory palace” implementation portrayed by the blackmailing villian in Season 3 of BBC’s “Sherlock” would be good. Files on the eyeglasses… Vannevar Bush’s Memex sort of thing.
I have titanium bone replacements now, though admantium is still unobtanium. But I _want_ “regeneration” or “healing factor” similar to Wolverine or Dr Who — at least for particular organs. Perhaps spleens, according to Glenn Reynolds. Certainly skin, like replacement bones, is a desirable tech augmentation.
Self-diagnostic devices that provide a bit more detail about my body’s current state of health would be welcome. “Pain” is sort of like the “check engine” idiot light of my body’s internal dashboard. By the time I get the signal, I’m already suffering damage. I want something more like a gauge that tells me I’m in the green or yellow zones moving toward red, not a “you just failed, you moron, send Lassie for help” signal.
Speaking of “send Lassie for help”, a wearable pair of tech tools for me and my dog to understand each other even better would be super, too. I don’t need quite the collar-to-voice thing of Pixar’s “UP!” but getting an ordinary person and an ordinary dog into the state of mutual understanding portrayed on Lassie or RinTinTin would be awesome, and seems within reach.
There’s a serious issue that immortality raises…term limits. I don’t want Harry Reid stonewalling spending reform three centuries from now.
Self-correcting hearing aids that boost desired sounds, filter dangerous and unwanted sounds, and shift frequencies up or down from inaudible to audible ranges at need would be cool and seem very doable in the lab, and therefore as a wearable piece of the super-suit whenever Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark want it.
Infrared, “heat-mapped” vision might be nearly as good as “x-ray” vision in so far as seeing through clothing. As above, sensing and mixing other invisible frequencies and portraying in a visible spectrum a la “Geordie” on ST-TNG would be nearly as good as anything Clark Kent might do, and with a GoogleGlass like device may be very imminent. (Super hearing and super vision may be in the arms race to defeat Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak as soon as it’s deployed.)
A “memory chip” to offload and backup personal organic memories (or at least INDEX the silly ellusive things) into secure storage (Bujold’s Simon Illyan) would be nice, and would seem to be a good intermediate step between current intelligence, augmented intelligence, and artificial intelligence. Failing that, the “memory palace” implementation portrayed by the blackmailing villian in Season 3 of BBC’s “Sherlock” would be good. Files on the eyeglasses… Vannevar Bush’s Memex sort of thing.
I have titanium bone replacements now, though admantium is still unobtanium. But I _want_ “regeneration” or “healing factor” similar to Wolverine or Dr Who — at least for particular organs. Perhaps spleens, according to Glenn Reynolds. Certainly skin, like replacement bones, is a desirable tech augmentation.
Self-diagnostic devices that provide a bit more detail about my body’s current state of health would be welcome. “Pain” is sort of like the “check engine” idiot light of my body’s internal dashboard. By the time I get the signal, I’m already suffering damage. I want something more like a gauge that tells me I’m in the green or yellow zones moving toward red, not a “you just failed, you moron, send Lassie for help” signal.
Speaking of “send Lassie for help”, a wearable pair of tech tools for me and my dog to understand each other even better would be super, too. I don’t need quite the collar-to-voice thing of Pixar’s “UP!” but getting an ordinary person and an ordinary dog into the state of mutual understanding portrayed on Lassie or RinTinTin would be awesome, and seems within reach.