Pop Sci's Future Of... Communication

The other night the Science Channel aired the debut episode of "Pop Sci's Future Of..." themed communications. Are these new innovations really possible for mainstream consumerism?

One of the main innovations discussed is the idea to implement ubiquitous technology imbedded into everyday objects, hook them up to the internet, and create output ports for people to interact. The example shown involved little computer rabbit shaped figures that could track your movements and behavior throughout an apartment and relay that information back to you. So for example, if you've misplaced your keys, you can simply ask the user friendly rabbit and it promtly solves the delemma with an accurate location of your keys. This idea, while functional, seems to me like an old idea implemented in new ways in which are extremely vulnerable to attack or exploitation with malicious intent. I would imagine that as is the case with any internet related technology, someone could hack into the network on which the rabbits operated and extract vital personal information such as the location of valuables. I can foresee the possiblity of this information even being sold to companies for advertising and consumer research.

The second technology I'll discuss is the tracking of one's mental computation. The same sort of thing is done with an MRI but this is done on a much lower scale. They have found a certain time of brain wave is emitted during brain function and they have discovered how to monitor the output. Similarly to an EKG, a device is attached to the user in the form of something similar to a headband to monitor the brain output in two categories of focus and meditation. Then a computer attaches a behavior to the output so that one can perform tasks through an avatar on screen. The tasks performed were simply but interesting such as levitation objects, moving them about the environment, and heating them to flash point.

The last technology covered in the episode was an animal-human translator. Scientists, veterinarians and animal behaviorists worked together to record certain identifiable growls, snarls, yelps and cries animals, specifically dogs, emit. Then the behaviorists interpreted the movements and noises to attach a meaning to each sound. After a while, enough data is collected and combined to create a fairly accurate database of general animal communication noises. Humans can now begin to easily understand the message a dog is trying to send and with the added output speaker, we can provide feedback to them in a more natural familiar language for them.