Nano Future 2030

A patent for an eye device is described as a lens replacement camera plus a retina stimulator to send signals to the brain.

For most of us, the eye we have is good enough, but it is not as good as it could be. The lens is a simple lens with no color correction, no distortion correction, and as we age, it becomes less able to focus over a wide area.

For those of us with cataracts - bad lens - it is even more important to improve the eye. I’ve had one lens replaced by a plastic lens due to a cataract. The other eye is showing signs of the same problem but is still good. The main problem with a plastic lens is that it will no longer change focus, so it is fixed at some distance and you need to have bi-focal glasses to view a wide range of distances.

The patent above uses a two part device. A camera in the lens and a retina device to take the signals from the camera and interface with the optic nerve. That last part is difficult and unneeded.

Replace the lens with a plastic camera, but instead of sending signals to a retina device, just shoot laser beams from the back of the camera to the existing retina and write the image on that surface at high resolution and without distortion.

This allows the full implant operation to be done as we do cataracts today. Plus you get super resolution because the lasers can write a better image on the retina than the human lens can produce.

Hi, I saw this article today from Science Daily and it reminded me of an idea I’m using in a novel.
Contact lens with electronics built in.

The idea is that the cell phone has developed from the old hand lifted device to the new “carry anywhere” phone of today (2008) and it will continue to develop along the following lines.

The kids of today are creating a new use as text and acronyms take over the conversations of youth.
Technology will feed that as they develop eye and ear accessories that are always connected. Both to the internet (as the medium) and to the phone descendants that will blend with our bodies.

In less than ten years the optical equivalent of contact lens plus the electronics to make them fully display capable with a resolution around 4000×3000 (see the article above) will give us total and immersive contact with the internet and all that it provides.

This means that first we will become assisted and have continuous audio and video interchange with anyone we know. More specifically, we will learn to “dial”, speak to and communicate with anyone as if they are in the room with us. In fact, it will become essential that anyone involved in commerce or fad based social groups will have to have this technology.

As the technology improves, it will become part of our body rather than an accessory we wear. Our eyeballs have plenty of room inside to hold full color laser projectors that write directly to the retina with a resolution far beyond that of any ordinary human. Remember, our eyes have a simple lens - nothing like the high quality lens even on a cheap camera.

In the limit, we will become a wired organism. We will experience each other in an entirely new medium of cyberspace that rivals the descriptions from Neuromancer. We will cease to talk to anyone beyond arms length without automatically slipping into internet connection mode. It will be seamless. And so much more intense than ordinary face to face conversation. To speak to someone beyond ten feet away, our electronic connection will take over and bring them face to face with us through the eye and ear that is internet connected.

Nanocells - a concept based on the idea of augmenting your cells instead of trying to fix your "body".

Your cells are your body. They are individuals in the sense that billions of one type make up an organ or muscle. If you know how to keep that one cell working optimally, then you probably have done a significant job of taking care of your "body".

At first glance, it may seem daunting, since we have more than 250 different types of cells in our bodies. But you don’t have to do everything at once.

We have the choice of picking out a few cell types to augment intensely or target all cells at a very basic level to support the entire body.

To pick a few cells for augmentation, we might try heart muscle, skin, liver, bladder, nervous system. The ones that most often go bad. Those organs contain many types of cells with many functions critical to the operation of the cell.

To augment the entire body at once, you have to stick to simple augmentation efforts in every cell of the body. This is simpler and might have greater effect on general health.

For instance, general cell augmentation would try to prevent internal cell actions like cancerous replication, DNA modification by virus, cell wall damage, or pollution from outside chemicals. It could monitor cell chemistry and signal a higher order communication system when ph or ion levels move outside of a safe range.

That higher communication system is part of a data accumulation network setup by groups of cells to consolidate their data and to present a compressed data stream of important facts to upper management. The top level management is the human composed of these cells. For example, the human could be notified when his physical activity stresses his body beyond its ability to handle or adapt to the stress. Sort of an early warning system that augments the pain pathways that we presently have for feedback.

How do we get these nano cells? At first it will be by injection or oral consumption of billions of robot modules designed to find an unoccupied cell of a certain type and to set up house keeping in that cell. And then to link up with other cells and become part of a larger communication system of cells.

Another route is to set up installation modules in the bone marrow and as new blood cells are specialized, they also are injected with a nanocell module to setup housekeeping. When the cell dies naturally ( assuming you allow that to happen for any reason ) the module is recycled and put into a new cell.

The goal is to have a nanocell module inside every cell in your body. It is not clear if you could stop all cell death or would want to do so. Skin cells flake off and die in millions per day, but that is natural and without redesigning our skin, I don’t see how to prevent those cells from dying. In that sense, dying is natural.

But having heart muscle die, seems unnecessary. Certainly, cancer is unnecessary. Preventing cancer and heart attacks would be among the first benefits of a nanocell system.

After seeing the resistance to genetically engineered crops, it is hard to imagine that food produced by a nanofactory would be welcomed with open arms by everyone. I suspect that it will be the last frontier to be conquered by molecular manufacturing. And even then, only the early adopters will serve tidbits at a party or garnish a meal at home with flavored rice or diced watermelon from your personal nanofactory.

It’s too high tech to use for everyday food needs unless food becomes hard to get or you have no money to buy the "good" food grown on a commercial farm. Hopefully that will change as we gain experience and the technology is able to proficiently reproduce natural grains and vegetables.

I would expect to see private groups working on hardware and open source software to produce "free food". It’s the old dream of freedom, but in a new guise. Provide each person with a food machine they can own and with which, they can feed their family from organic debre or grass and you have freed them from the most obvious dependence on society. While that could be bad if it tears society apart, it could also create a society where the individual is free to grow without the need to work for daily survival. I suspect that any outcome will be hard to evaluate from our present perspective and can be seen as a natural evolution rather than a choice we have to make.

Things are going to change. And I doubt we have a lot to say about how they change. I vote for personal freedom without understanding what that means in terms of outcome. Another may vote for social stability with equal innocence. My vote is motivated by the desire to remove restrictions. The other could be motivated by a fear of change. Who is to say which one is better?