Your body as data

March 23, 2005 12:02 PM

2 GB of data per second, piggybacking on your skin's electrical field. You == organic lan for small electronic devices. And it's a little more secure than bluetooth. via kottke, like everything else.
posted by Tlogmer (24 comments total)

I can imagine it now -- "I just ripped this new CD, hold on while I sync myself to my MP3 collection..."
posted by clevershark at 12:14 PM on March 23, 2005

Imagine the aspect of having sex in the digital age...
posted by Dean Keaton at 12:22 PM on March 23, 2005

Call me reactionary, but this isn't tech I'd wear without extensive studies. The body is an extremely sophisticated device. It may ALREADY be using these paths for signaling, though probably not in a way we'd immediately recognize. Evolution is funny that way. Piggybacking more data on top may be disruptive to the existing signals.

The body is very tough in some ways, but very fragile in others. We're probably not evolved to resist active tampering with our own energy fields. Maybe it's perfectly safe... but I personally would not be willing to bet on that for a good long while.
posted by Malor at 12:23 PM on March 23, 2005

Malor makes a good point, the downstream effects of these kind of (admittedly) very cool concepts needs to be studied before widespread adoption.

But I love the concept of trading phone numbers while making out, I wonder how hard it would be to "sham" your number if they're a bad kisser?
posted by fenriq at 12:30 PM on March 23, 2005

Then we can stick the letter e- on another host of words. Cooties aren't the same anymore. Dadadada.
posted by taursir at 12:38 PM on March 23, 2005

Uhh... according to the article, the bandwidth is 2Mbps, not 2GBps (which would be about, oh, 8,192 times faster).

Still, 2Mbps is helluva fast for the kinds of data transfer I can think of right now. Maybe one day the slang will be "sync up" rather than "hook up"?

"Lets bittorrent this file by all holding hands in a cute star formation!"

I'll save my paranoia-fueled rantings for another post.
posted by lowlife at 12:40 PM on March 23, 2005

Imagine the aspect of having sex in the digital age...
Diggers from Neil Stephensen's Diamond Age!

This isn't the first time such a story has come up. Imagine the boon for gropers on subways. Get to cop a feel and digits.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 12:41 PM on March 23, 2005

"Lets bittorrent this file by all holding hands in a cute star formation!"

I wouldn't want to hold hands with some unwashed cur for as long as it takes to download the latest Hollywood blockbuster telesync.
posted by antron at 12:44 PM on March 23, 2005

OMFG - I'm uploading, honey, I'm uuuuuplooooaaading!!!
posted by soyjoy at 1:01 PM on March 23, 2005

(inserts obligatory virus joke)
posted by bhance at 1:09 PM on March 23, 2005

Byline: all this would be much more credible if the story weren't written by Pee Wee Herman.
posted by diastematic at 1:10 PM on March 23, 2005

Excellent comments. This would be super groovy scifi nerdtastic, though.
posted by laurenbove at 1:10 PM on March 23, 2005

This idea has been around for about ten years. It was developed at IBM.
This is the first I've heard about it for a while, though, and even at 2Mbps, it has still gotten a lot faster.
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 1:12 PM on March 23, 2005

"As human beings are ineffective aerials..."

The future is now... In all seriousness, though, this is really cool - as long as it is actually reliable and doesn't require too much power, that kind of thing. How about wireless headphones that don't transmit radiation directly into your brain? Sound good?
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:18 PM on March 23, 2005

You == organic lan for small electronic devices.

But ... my name's not Ian.
posted by 5MeoCMP at 1:49 PM on March 23, 2005

see also.
posted by moonbird at 2:04 PM on March 23, 2005

Espionage will get interesting.

Will it be possible to drag one's feet deliberately across a carpeted surface in order to fry someone's RedTacton device?
posted by halcyon_daze at 2:06 PM on March 23, 2005

Imagine the aspect of having sex in the digital age...

I need no imagination. The future is now. Or...was 1993.
posted by graventy at 2:19 PM on March 23, 2005

Never will a hand shake protocol be more literal than with this technology..
posted by TwelveTwo at 2:42 PM on March 23, 2005

You guys seem to be missing a major point here: think of the SPAM you're gonna get when advertisers know they can tap into YOU, personally! As the technology grows, physical contact will become obsolete and they'll be able to broadcast ads through the airwaves right into your consciousness! Weeeee! As if I didn't already suffer from ADD.

Or, maybe not...
posted by TheStorm at 2:53 PM on March 23, 2005

Well, at least the techniques employed by modern pickpockets won't need to change much. *bump* "Whoa, sorry sir."
posted by TwelveTwo at 2:57 PM on March 23, 2005

think of the SPAM you're gonna get when advertisers know they can tap into YOU, personally!

Actually it'll be easier to get back at the mofo's... whether by uploading a nasty virus to them, or by just beating the crap out of them using the human built-in "manual" interface.

Imagine the aspect of having sex in the digital age...

Meh. It's already been happening for years... however it does happen to still be at the "hands-on" stage. :-)
posted by clevershark at 3:43 PM on March 23, 2005

In related news, the RIAA seeks to outlaw skin as it's most obvious use is to transfer pirated music.
posted by xmod2 at 4:48 PM on March 23, 2005

Awesome.
posted by blacklite at 5:22 PM on March 23, 2005