Becoming attached to computers
by Simon Jones

Human life practically revolves around computers. In the future we could become virtually inseparable.

We're all getting increasingly dependent on computers. The Millennium Bug fiasco illustrated this perfectly; with the threat of planes falling out of the sky and bank balances vanishing - all arising from a simple date change. In today's society it's getting harder to tell who's got the upper hand: man or machine.

With mobile phones becoming derigeur with anyone over the age of ten, they could soon become as essential as a watch. In fact, the mobile phone could even merge with the watch. For the purposes of portability, we are already seeing new technologies merge: WAP mobile phones with the internet, for example. It seems inevitable that the machines that have become the life support of business people on the move - the mobile phone, laptop computer, organiser, etc, will eventually be pared down into one single unit.

The first company to combine the humble wrist watch with the PC was Seiko. The Ruputer Pro4 boasts 4 Mb of processing power and communication via infrared to a PC for file exchange. Several buttons are included for navigating around the LCD display and accessing functions.

The more practical VisionPad designed by IBM Research is another form of wearable computer that dispenses with fiddly buttons. Controlled by the user's voice, it includes a display worn as an eyepiece attached to a microphone headset. This makes it possible to surf the internet on the move and view contents via voice recognition software. If the thought of people walking around with Terminator-style displays covering one eye, fills you with horror - don't worry - the computer appears to be aimed at internal business applications rather than for personal use. The stock market trading, surgery and manufacturing industries have already expressed an interest in VisionPad. Its main benefit is that complex diagrams can be displayed on the screen, avoiding the need to consult a manual that may not be easily accessible.

Pushing PC integrity to the extreme, some scientists are already exploring the possibility of connecting living nerve cells with microchips, to provide enhanced brain capacity and artificial sight. Taking instructions directly from the brain, it's hard to imagine the computer being very reliable with intruding thoughts like 'I feel a bit peckish' and 'that was a great film last night' rendering it inoperable. Integrating computers with the brain may not be as outlandish as it sounds: the brain has similar elements, a central processor of information, a restricted memory capacity, and the eyes serving as a monitor. With PC rage sweeping across many offices, the day when humans become attached to computers seems a long way off.

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