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#195

Continuing on the thought of a PAN (Personal Area Network), how would a reliable biological information transmission network implanted into your body work? I suggested overloading the central nervous system, which already exists in the body and is capable of transmitting small electrical signals from one part of the body to another, but I wonder if this is actually wise. Let's say you are using your laptop. Your laptop, of course, is not a separate, standalone item but a device consisting of two separate components, one surgically embedded into each of your thighs. Jacks on the inside of your legs are positioned so they plug into each other when you put your legs together. Voila, an ergonomic split keyboard and a dual-panel display are at your disposal. Anyway, what happens when you are using your laptop, and you want to download a song to your iBody? The download request is transmitted via small electric pulses through the central nervous system up to your brain, which forwards the signals to the antennae fused into your ears, which connect to the Internet via satellites. That's great and all, but that still leaves the matter of the brain interpreting the central nervous system signals as normal sensory inputs. Sure, you can surf the web on your lap, but what if downloading the home page of your favorite web site just happens to send electrical signals through the central nervous system that closely resemble those that are transmitted by your body's natural sense of touch when it is immersed into a vat of scorpions and slime? What if you are talking with your best friend on the cell phone implanted in your arm, and he or she has a voice with the kind of overtones that cause you to smell a mug of hot chocolate that has been left out on the counter for three years? What if emailing your cousin some pictures from last year's DisneyWorld vacation feels like someone lit your lumbar region on fire? No, I think it is best to leave the central nervous system alone after all. Instead, perhaps some kind of surface area network can be installed that would make skin the physical medium for the transfer of information. Ok, so you get a paper cut, and suddenly you're dialing 911 by accident. Better toss that idea, too.