Wearable Technology: Building a Cyborg Culture?

If you have never heard the word “cyborg”, you’ve done an impressive job of deflecting most things sci-fi, or namely Star Trek, where many a nightmarish cyborg was born. Cyborg is shorthand for “cybernetic organism”, a being with both organic and cybernetic parts. If this sounds like outer space talk, wait until you discover real life cyborg Neil Harbisson, the fascinating owner of a skull implant that allows him to listen to color. Above average human abilities seem to be one of the motivations behind Google’s Project Glass. This straight from the future research and development project is aimed at creating a commercial “augmented reality head-mounted display (HMD)”. It simply means a pair of glasses that display information in a smartphone-like format, hands-free, with Internet interaction via language voice commands. “Being a four-eyes has never been so cool.” I don’t know, maybe it’s the mom in me, but these stylish pairs of GLASS (as the hip kids call them) seem ten times more likely to cause car accidents or tripping over sidewalks than texting on the go… However, with the capability to translate foreign languages as they’re spoken, it doesn’t appear that anyone will be sitting still for long while wearing their Google Glass specs. Check out this insiders look at GLASS and what it would be like to be an almost cyborg. LINKS real life cyborg Neil Harbisson – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/23/cyborg-neil-harbisson-interview_n_2745307.html?utm_hp_ref=google-glass Google’s Project Glass – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/google-glass/ Being a four-eyes has never been so cool – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/04/project-glass-google_n_1403174.html translate foreign languages – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/google-glass-inspired-specs-auto-translate_n_1695008.html?utm_hp_ref=google-glass insiders look at GLASS – http://www.google.com/glass/start/