CES 2008: Cybernetic Implants In 20 Years?

Most times when we hear about predictions from CES, they are of the "TV's are going to be 438 inch screens with a gazillion pixels by the end of the year" or the "Oh yeah? Well, our new camera will have 28.2 megapixels! Eat that!" Sometimes though, we hear things that are actually exciting, and may have real impact on the quality, and in this case quantity, of our lives.

Dr. Levy Gerzberg spoke to an audience at CES yesterday regarding his idea for "disruptive technology." In his vision, disruptive technology is a tech that is designed to fundamentally change our lives in a drastic, positive way. He then took that a step further to say his vision s to create technology that can be implanted in the body to prolong our lives.

Now, before we go on, most of you are probably thinking that you've heard about this before. Well, you have, but never in a reality-based environment. We've seen it in tons of cyber-punk based fantasies and shows like Start Trek, but to hear someone speak about things like implants that help paraplegics use their limbs again, or using facial-recognition-style cameras to aid the blind to "see" the world around them is a different story altogether.

Dr Gerzberg, who is the CEO of Zoran Corporation (a microprocessor designer), went on to talk about other possibilities, like a GPS enabled pacemaker that can start working on the heart and notify paramedics as to where a person is at the early signs of heart attack. He showcased a pill-sized camera that transmits information to your RF equipped belt which can then be read in place of using endoscopic cameras.

While this all seems far away and surreal, it's very inspiring to see that there is some positive movement in this field. While we've recently heard musings of sperm-powered robots, Gerzberg offered some less amusing, but equally exciting, insight into his thought-process:

"We are making progress. The evolutionary technology for this exists. We are getting closer to having human intelligence on a chip. Now its time to pull it together and make it a revolution....I think in twenty years time if we meet again here again at CES, there will be a new building dedicated to consumer medical electronics"

This is the kind of cool idea that I expect to come from a gathering like CES. I'm sure the tin-hat crowd will start screaming conspiracy theories, but let them. While I'm enjoying my cybernetic enhanced body and life, they can be running around scared of "the man."

Cyborg tech predicted as the next big disruptive technology [CNET]