We Need to Corner the Market on Future Tech Now - saving the planet pt. 2

This is a list of six technologies --- in the plastic, metal and binary code sense --- that hold great potential for accelerating human freedom and decentralizing power from nations to communities.  Too often important technology is concealed, forgotten, or worst of all, used against us.  Let’s cop this shit before DARPA accidenally reverses every photon in the Universe from some lab in Utah. 

1. Universal Translation

On the peer to peer (P2P) network soulseek, where I have downloaded several thousand albums, I find myself constantly running into folks who don’t speak English.  In another time and another place, this would be a rather final barrier, but thanks to humble BabelFish, I can carry on a conversation and find the African music that keeps me sane.

BabelFish is extremely clumsy and limited, plus there’s the fact I need to cut and paste phrases in and out, and select the input and output languages.  The next generation of translation software will be pure sci-fi by comparison: real-time translation, a smart AI which can figure out which language is being typed, and a vastly better translation rate.  And that, my friends, is not even the good stuff.

Military personnell in Iraq --- the more capable ones, at least --- are being given the IraqComm, basically a laptop translation device which stores 50,000 words in the local dialect of Arabic.  (Check out the specs in that last link, it’s a great prototype of what Universal Translation will probably look like, first-generation at least.)

The main point I’d like to make here is that Universal Translation must not become merely a military tool.  We cannot allow DARPA to hold up public-sector research on the horseshit basis of “national security” or a “War on Terror”.  I can’t imagine a more powerful device to built a truly global Earth civilization than cheap, personal, real-time translation machines.

In an age of instantaneous electronic communication network, the only remaining barrier to global Earth civilization is the language barrier.  If that were removed, it would be a major transformation of the human condition.

2. Encryption —from public key to quantum

Fun Fact: If you have high-grade cyptographic algorhythms on a laptop and you cross the US border, you’re not only committing a Federal crime, you’re actually smuggling munitions. That’s right, the mighty US government considered strong cryptology not only a weapon, but a threat to national security.

With that in mind, Brainsturbator has very little to say on this topic, beyond recommending you get yourself a private communications network if you’re doing anything your government might disapprove of.

To that end, Brainsturbator Library is very happy to offer you The Book on crypto:

Applied Cryptography, 2nd Edition - Bruce Schneier

3. Teleportation

Yup, it’s here.

Catch up with reality: here’s summaries of IBM’s research, Caltech’s research, and if the antiseptic authority of Wiki is what you need, here you go.

This is clearly just baby steps --- transferring information on the quantum level is hardly teleporting Kirk from the bridge to the planet underneath the Enterprise, but.  That will come eventually.  And it will happen because of the research going on now. 

4. “Acoustic Weapons” is what happens when you classify Acoustic Healing

That chart is solid gold.  It was prepared by OSHA to demonstrate dangerous resonances for huge machinery --- resonances which can do permanent, even fatal damage to human organs.  Using sound as a weapon is not new, and it’s not conspiracy theory, either.  It’s big business, the exciting new field of “Non-Lethal Deterrents” --- in other words, now you can do Kent State whenever you want, only without the dead students.  This technology is a headstone on the grave of public protest as an effective means of.....well, anything. 

Two of the devices on the market today are the “Active Denial System” from Raytheon, and the “Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD)” from American Technology Corp.

Fortean Times also provides this excellent article about “sonic weapons”.

I will only note in passing that the difference between medicine and poison is merely dosage.  All of this technology, if it were unclassified and given to the medical profession, could easily create a new field of acoustic medicine, or sound healing.  If this piques your curiousity, Brainsturbator Library has a good read for you:

The Sound Medicine of Brian Daley—an interesting tribute to a little-known innovator.

5. Wireless Alternative Internets

The aware reader has probably noticed the recent calls to SAVE THE INTERNET, and perhaps you’re intimately aware of the corporate war against network neutrality.  There is an attempt underway to change the internet completely: from open-ended info-democracy to a corporate content delivery service.  Given who is congress and who is in the White House, we’re sorry to report that this is another fight the good guys will lose.

And? And, fuck it.  Let them have it.

Wireless Internet works, on the very simplest level, like this: a box gets the internet feed from a landline, converts it to a 2.4 Ghz radio signal, and then a card in your computer takes it from there.  Now, without a landline connection to The Internets, you still have a wireless communication system, capable of delivering data and co-ordinating millions and millions of computers into a communication system.

So what we propose is abandoning the existing Internets --- which were built by the military and are owned by major corporations, used for datamining and control, and under constant, ubiquitous surveillance. 

This is probably raising a few eyebrows, but this post is more about firing up neurons than serving a whole meal.  There will be a more in-depth Brainsturbator post about this topic within the week.

And for further, hands-on learning, Brainsturbator Library is proud to serve you the following:

Building Wireless Community Networks—O’Reilly Books

Wireless Networks in the Developing World—O’Reilly Books

6. Fricking Invisibility Suits Yo

If you haven’t already seen the video demonstrations of Optical Camoflage, check out Google Video or YouTube and look up “invisibility” and prepare to have a mild seizure.  (Pardon the laziness, but due to copyright laws, links change fast.  Matthew 7:7, you know what I mean?)

This is another grey zone tech where it could easily be too late to get down in any meaningful way.  The military has been all over this since it was a distant possibility, and a number of private-sector folks doing research in this area have stated flatly that the Pentagon has the really good stuff.

Click to Enlarge

This page here is a good place to start, it offers a run-down of the basic principles.  As we develop a more rigorous library --- and understanding --- of what’s going on here, there will be a dedicated Brainsturbator post on optical camo.

Also check out the super-cool patented process of X’tal Vision, a very simliar tech.