WHAT’S FOR CASH?

As the world “shrinks” further from a global village to a virtual community, what manner of currency will we use? Will we have surgically implanted bar codes for readily available personal data? What if this Universal Implant Device (Uid) totally replaces cash and credit cards? Will we deal in Uid credit units, thereby eliminating multiple currency exchange rates? Will this reduce inflation rates in the developing world? Will counterfeiting and money laundering be ancient? While the advantages are many, our socio-political and psychological environment may resist such revolutionary change. The required technology for this device is however here, so beware!

 

WILL WE BE NICE TO MICE?

Insecticides are bad for us, which we know. Some allow certain resistant pests to evolve. Some build-up in high concentrations in animals and may become dangerous to man. So do we stop the killing of pests and “talk” to them instead? Possibly, going by what an innovator in Nigeria refers to as TALK.ACTIVE, pest control by communication. The principle is simple. It stimulates or provokes a response or reaction that gives the pests the appearance of mindless automatons.


For example:

If a cricket comes into a territory, the owner makes a special noise meaning, “Get out or I’ll fight you.” This frightens off the intruder.

A honeybee (inside a house) will endlessly fly towards a lighted window in vain efforts to escape. Here the ultra violet light says, “come”.

 

Three “main” languages are being compiled.

The kinetic energy of TOUCH/HEARING (concerned with the perception of vibration).

The radiant energy of LIGHT (organs of vision).

The chemical energy of reactive molecules that are SMELLED/TASTED.

So for your rodent problem, don’t call the exterminators, just be a Dr. DoLittle and “speak” in ultra sound.

 

THE NEW “ DOOMSDAY PROPHETS ”

They have always been in the news. While scientists talked of the Antarctica melting and flooding the earth, spiritualists talked of an Armageddon coming at the strike of the New (Year 2000) millennium. Present day scientists are already tracking a good number of “planet killers” (small and giant asteroids) aiming straight for our world and they say there’s nothing we can do about them.

 

Their “counterparts”, religious zealots, already consider the World Wide Web (WWW) a tool for the new  “antichrist”. It is not clear why but it could be because the letter W is the 23rd letter of the alphabet. Since it contains the numbers 2 and 3, it could also represent the number 6. So for all who bear the sign WWW.COM, it could well be invitation of the “beast” of the 666 fame.


COMMUNICATION, INFORMATION AND THE CYBER CRAZE

NEW BILLBOARDS

As we await the arrival of the future TV that digitises smell, brace yourselves for the billboards of the next generation. Cigarette ads that will make you feel the urge to smoke. Food ads that will make you hungry. A beer ad that subtly convinces you to head straight for the nearest pub or bar. Wherever you look, you’ll be “turned on”. Billboards fitted with emotional controllers will remotely send chemical, electrical or light signals directly to the hypothalamus in the brain to control hunger, thirst, temperature, aggression and even sex drive to stimulate these needs as you walk or drive past them. So keep away from those painkiller billboards they may “give” you a headache.

 

THE CYBER CRAZE

New computers are getting more minute by the day. We even hear of PC monitors worn over an eye like a monocle. By now, you are ready for anything, or so you may think. Thought controlled imaginary keyboards may be “clicked” to access a nano-processor implanted in the brain like the ordinary pacemaker. By the middle of the new millennium “reading one’s mind” may be a literary statement.

 

In sports, football coaches running up and down the side-line may be a thing of the past, if the world soccer body FIFA allows players to wear tiny receivers to get on-the-spot directives from coaches.

 

Will cyber crime include cyber-narcotics  (getting high on bioelectric impulses)? Will cyber sex lead to promiscuity? Will science fiction movies like Total Recall, the Lawnmower man, and The Matrix scare people from using cyber recreational facilities? Will dreams be record able? Will employees work in a virtual office?