Tag Archives: robot arm

New technology? Sign me up.

I’d absolutely wear an iPhone watch. Why not? It’s the natural next step in terms of smart technology. I remember the last time I tried to draw a line in the sand, telling myself, “No, that technology is just too much. It’s not for me.” It was back in 2007 when the original iPhone came out. Everyone was making a huge deal, about how this was going to change everything. I looked at my Nokia black-and-white brick and I thought, you know what? I’m good. Not only do I not need an iPhone, but I don’t want one.

roooroboobarm

And then my mom got me one for Christmas that year. And I instantly fell in love. It really did change everything, and chances are you know exactly what I’m talking about. Because everybody has a smart phone, and everybody can remember his or her first. It’s amazing, having a little computer in your pocket that does whatever you want. Not only will I never look back, but I’ll never so no to technology again.

So bring on the iWatch. Maybe I won’t wear it immediately. It’s the same thing with the Google glasses. No, I don’t want to be part of that first generation of early adopters. First of all, that stuff is really expensive. And as we can see with most first generation products, the manufacturers deliberately leave out cool stuff so they can try to squeeze an upgrade out of you when version two comes out. Like, remember how the first iPad had no camera? Come on.

But while it’s one thing to have a cool phone, it’s another thing to be in the minority of the first wave of consumers willing to go for a piece of wearable technology. I would never want to be one of the first people to have an iWatch or Google glasses, not saying that I don’t want, because every time I’d put them on, I’d be conscious of the fact that nobody else has this stuff yet. And so I’d be attracting a lot of unwanted attention. I mean, I know that the first time I’m on the subway and I see someone wearing a computer watch, of course I’m going to be staring at it.

But as soon as it’s even somewhat commonplace, I’m in. Sign me up for the watch and the glasses. I’ll take both. Once it’s no longer weird for people to twitch their heads or however you’re supposed to operate these hands-free devices in public, you’ll see me twitching and talking to the air and pointing at invisible computer stuff that only I can see. And it’s going to be awesome.

Come on, you know they’re eventually going to invent some sort of a built-in smart technology. And I’ll take that too. I’m not afraid. Let’s say that Apple eventually comes out with an iArm. Imagine, it’s just like your regular arm, right, but it’s a device. Yes, a lot of people might get turned off by the fact that they’ll have to sacrifice their regular arms, but you’ve got to assume that the iArm is going to be able to do all of the stuff that a human arm can do.

You’ll be able to put it in “human mode” or something when you don’t feel like having all of those extra-enhanced abilities turned on. So you can feel with it like you would your regular arm, you could close your eyes and move it around and it would be just like you’d been born with it already implanted.

But why would you ever use “human mode?” It would be like airplane mode for current cell phones, like you only have to ever turn your phone off if you’re at an airport and someone makes you. Because the extra-enhanced abilities would be insane. Like super arm strength. And all sorts of extra sensory perception modes. Just think about it, you’d be able to put your hand into a pot of boiling water to see how hot it is, and you wouldn’t get burned. Or, you could make snowballs one after the other with your bare hands, without getting that feeling like it’s too cold. And then you could use your artificial super arm strength to throw those perfectly crafted snowballs at cars miles away.

I’ll take it. I’ll take anything the future thinks it can throw at me. Will they ever make a technology where you can have your consciousness uploaded into a computer? I’m in. Seriously, sign me up. Put my brain into a superhuman robot body. Tweak my personality so that I’m charming and funny. Make my robot body look like a more handsome version of whoever you think the most handsome guy on the planet is. Give me mental access to a built-in app store, where I can buy new abilities and powers whenever I want. Spider-Man mode for ninety-nine cents? That sounds great.

So please, whenever I hear people talking about how technology is getting out of control, I’m just thinking to myself, come on, of course you’re going to give in eventually. Yeah, you might sound like you’ve got something to say with your speeches about technological dependence or whatever, but I’m calling baloney. Because as soon as that stuff gets popular, everybody’s going to want it, and everybody’s going to have it.