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Kurzweil's defense of "computers commonly embedded in clothing and jewelry" as applying to iPod Nanos embedded in pockets is a bit of a stretch, but in practica
by dhume 17y ago
Kurzweil's defense of "computers commonly embedded in clothing and jewelry" as applying to iPod Nanos embedded in pockets is a bit of a stretch, but in practicality not far at all.
I'll accept this when the iPod is embedded with some degree of permanency and doesn't have to be taken out when I do laundry.
- SandB0x 17y agoI have an old Sony network walkman (nwz-e99) that went through a 40 degree wash and works just fine.
- TrevorJ 17y agoI would agree here. The effect is ubiquitous computing in both cases, but rather than "a computer in everything" we have "Computers you can take everywhere".
- ZachPruckowski 17y agoDo you honestly believe that it's not possible to waterproof/heatproof an iPod? The technology exists to do that, but it's not commercially practical, because no-one buys an iPod for every shirt they own. I bet if I really wanted to, I could pull a shuffle out of it's case, use more expensive and denser flash memory, and shove all this in a tiny waterproof/heatproof baggie or small and thin container, swap the USB connector for mini-USB, insulate the wires, build caps for the external wiring ends, and sew the whole thing to the inside of my shirt behind my shoulderblade. It'd have exposed ports to connect mini-USB to my computer and earbuds to my ears, and if I wanted to wash it, I'd stick the port-caps in and seal it somehow. It'd take a fair few prototypes, but it could be done with today's tech. Edit: I don't think this is commercial viable, but if one of you guys builds it and gets rich, I expect royalties :-)
- scott_s 17y agoThe technology exists to do that, but it's not commercially practical, because no-one buys an iPod for every shirt they own. Clearly the implication of such a prediction is that the technology will be at a point where it is commercially practical.
- ZachPruckowski 17y agoSo a prediction that we would have tiny computers that we carried everywhere in our clothes and bodies is wrong because instead of carrying them in our clothes, we carry them in our pockets? Kurzweil's predictions relate to the level of computational power for a given cost and what we can do with that power. Just because my turn-by-turn directions come from my phone instead of a wrist-strap doesn't make those predictions less wrong. In the absence of iPods or cell phones, it's likely that sewn-in or wearable computers would be more attractive.
- scott_s 17y agoKurzweil's predictions relate to the level of computational power for a given cost and what we can do with that power. Indeed they do. And there's an order of magnitude separating the computational power and cost of iPods from what we can currently incorporate into reasonably priced clothing. A friend of mine does research in the area of wearable computing. We're not at the iPod-in-shirt level yet. Further, if we don't hold predictions to what they actually said, then there's no point. We can always manufacture an interpretation in which the prediction is true.
- MaysonL 17y agoYou hardly have to do all the heat/waterproofing and miniaturization: build it into a belt buckle. I wonder if anyone's done this yet? Google gives 10 pages of results: there are a lot of those out there. Kurzweil was right!
- dhume 17y agoI don't consider that as satisfying the prediction of computers embedded in clothing any more than I consider predictions of flying cars fulfilled by ultralight aircraft.