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Wet and Hard (ware)

With the recent advancements in Brain-Computer Interfaces, specifically in terms of neuroprosthetics were the brain can control body parts via computer hardware designed to jump or leap over damaged nerves, we may be close to a direct neural interface for gaming. This is something I believe will happen before 2020. I don't think this will allow real virtual reality, only give us the ability to control our digital avatars in the game by issuing commands with our thoughts. Basically our brains will be the controller. This is already done with quadriplegics controlling a "mental mouse" to operate Windows and MS Paint. :o
Part of the reason I think this is the next step in gaming is because this BCI research was making big strides in 2002-2003 when both the 360 and PS3 were in development. If Microsoft and Sony were paying attention, which I'm sure they were, they had to be thinking of the possibilities of BCI and gaming. They both knew it would be a decade before BCI was advanced enough to use in a commercially viable application. So they both set up the next gen systems to run a 10+ year cycle and start researching new tech to take advantage of recent advancements. This points to new systems coming out between 2015 and 2017, at which point BCI technology will be advanced enough to have a simple user interface allowing anyone easy control of the new system.

Maybe I'm a generation too early in this thinking but I am really excited at this possibility.

Now I brought up Wetware earlier. Wetware is a tech that we currently don't have, or at least it isn't made public. It is much like the BCI but instead of our using hardware for the interface, it uses a biological tech to augment the brain. Its basically having artificially grown brain mass attached to the brain. The uses of such tech is hard to imagine but one possible application is having all the books in the world put into computer data form and stored in this wetware. Then our consciousness can use this wetware as a virtual brain, having instant access to essentially every book in existence. We will see this tech sometime around 2050. Some of us will still be alive and gaming, some of us will be planted. I'll be 74 years old in 2050 and if that tech indeed exists and is being used for gaming, you can bet your ass I'll be camping out at GameStop the night before release.

Wetware will be a very controversial issue when its development phase reaches a point that it can be used by consumers. Some of the opposition will be religious in nature, some will be people concerned with humans becoming detached from the physical world. There may be laws against this tech just like there are laws against cloning humans (Louisiana law expired in 2003 so you can clone Jessica Alba).

Posted by intrinsicomega on 2009-09-30 01:10:52 | Rating: