Communion Of Dreams

Of all the many wonderful characters created by J. Michael Straczynski for his Babylon 5 universe, I have always been particularly fond of the Technomage Galen. Why? Well, actor Peter Woodward is just plain cool (he understand real weapons and fighting like few actors or fight directors do - his ‘Conquest‘ series for the History Channel a few years back was one of the best such documentary series I have ever seen). But more than that, the character Galen uses *exactly* the kind of technology that I envision is commonplace in the world of Communion of Dreams: the cyberwear which allows the user a functional augmented reality.

Recently, I wrote about how researchers have made a first important step in this direction, with the development of “a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.”

Well, now Wired is reporting that - surprise, surprise - DARPA is interested in the development of this technology. From the article:

Today, a handful of soldiers with advanced gear can see a few digital maps, through helmet-mounted monocles. Some pilots can get data about their world, on heads-up displays. But one day, troops could see an info-”augmented” reality all around them, with contact lenses that provide “first-person shooter-type video game” environments to those that wear them. At least, that’s the idea behind the latest project from DARPA, the Pentagon’s blue sky science and technology division.

The agency’s Information Processing Techniques Office announced Wednesday that it’s looking for information on “the creation of micro- and nano-scale display technologies for the purpose of creating displays that could be worn as transparent contact lenses.” And not in some far-off future. But in “three to five years.”

Three to five years. As I said in that post in January:

Woo-hoo! I love it when my predictions start to become reality!

Jim Downey

I’ve mentioned previously the work of science historian James Burke. This past weekend I finished watching the last couple of episodes of his ground-breaking series Connections. Overall, you would probably enjoy watching the series, and will find a lot of chuckles over what was “high tech” in 1978 versus the reality of what we have today. But the closing bit was just stunning - it was a prediction of the need for and use of the Internet before DARPA had even begun to let the cat out of the bag. Here’s the last ten minutes:

In particular the bit that starts out at about 5:00 is the culmination of his entire thesis about change - that understanding how things change is the key to understanding everything. At about 6:45 is this remarkable passage (transcribed myself, since I couldn’t readily find it online - how’s that for irony?):

Scientific knowledge is hard to take, because it removes the reassuring crutches of opinion and ideology. And the reason why so many people may be thinking about throwing away those crutches is because thanks to science and technology, they have begun to know that they don’t know so much, and if they are to have more say in what happens in their lives, more freedom to develop their abilities to the full, they have to be helped towards that knowledge they know exists and that they don’t possess.

And by ‘helped towards that knowledge’, I don’t mean give everybody a computer and say “help yourself.” Where would you even start? No, I mean, trying to find ways to translate the knowledge, to teach us to ask the right questions. See, we’re on the edge of a revolution in communications technology that is going to make that more possible than ever before. Or, if that’s not done, to cause an explosion of knowledge that will leave those of us who don’t have access to it as powerless as if we were deaf, dumb, and blind.

Digital divide, anyone? Anyway, I find it just fascinating that Burke was so dead-on in his prediction of the Internet, even if he didn’t have the term for it, and yet even he failed to understand how phenomenally all-encompassing it would be. Whereas he thought that it would be impossible to just give people access to the information and say “go to it”, that is exactly what we’ve got - and self-organization of information and resources like Wikis make that information understandable, not just accessible.

When, as often happens, I feel somewhat pessimistic, that our greed or violent tendencies will outstrip our maturing as a culture/species, it is helpful to come across something like this. And I think that is why I read SF, and have written Communion of Dreams: because there, with all the ugliness and human folly, there is nonetheless room for hope. Look at what we’ve done in just the last thirty years - what more can we accomplish in the next forty, if we don’t destroy ourselves?

Jim Downey

(Cross posted to UTI.)

You think you get frustrated when your computer acts up? How do you think the guys who were on the receiving end of 500 rounds of 35mm explosive anti-aircraft fire feel? From Wired’s Danger Room blog:

We’re not used to thinking of them this way. But many advanced military weapons are essentially robotic — picking targets out automatically, slewing into position, and waiting only for a human to pull the trigger. Most of the time. Once in a while, though, these machines start firing mysteriously on their own. The South African National Defence Force “is probing whether a software glitch led to an antiaircraft cannon malfunction that killed nine soldiers and seriously injured 14 others during a shooting exercise on Friday.”

Wasn’t something like this part of the paleo-future Skynet from the Terminator? You think maybe we should pass along to the boys at DARPA the suggestion that they should watch that movie as a cautionary tale rather than an instruction manual?

Jim Downey

(Cross posted to UTI.)

Two items of note in the science news in recent days:

Ad Astra Rocket Company reports that they have successfully tested a plasma engine for a time period of over 4 hours, demonstrating that the technology is stable for sustained use.  This will likely prove to be the first major improvement over conventional chemical reaction rockets put into widespread use for spaceflight, and is a staple of Science Fiction (including being referenced in Communion as part of the ‘history’ of spaceflight in the early 21st century).

Second, a new scramjet engine has just be successfully tested at over Mach 10.  While this tech is being pushed for military applications (DARPA is behind this test engine), once it is established it will likely find applications outside just pure military missions.  I predict in Communion that it will be the basis for low-orbit shuttles, ferrying people up to transit stations.

Once again, it is exciting to see my predictions coming online in about the time-frame which I expected.

Jim Downey