Of All the Nerve: A World Without Voice

June 18, 2008

Here is something that may be one of the cornerstones for what's to come on the Internet: "nerve tapping."

Using a special neckband, humans will be able capture nerve impulses going from their brains to their vocal chords. These signals are picked up by the neckband and relayed wirelessly to a computer that converts them into words spoken by a computerized voice.

In other words, voiceless communication! Imagine two people having a phone conversation in a crowded room without ever actually speaking a word. The airlines might like this notion, or other quiet places, such as golf matches, opera concerts, or theater shows. And almost certainly such technology would be miraculous for people who, for a number of medical reasons, are unable to speak.

Now think of the possibilities of being able to communicate with your Web-enabled mobile device without ever making a sound. For example, recently Yahoo released its oneSearch mobile application. With oneSearch, anything you would search for at your desktop, you can now ask for from your phone. With nerve tapping technology, it will be possible to walk down a street and quietly communicate with your mobile device. You might really be craving a slice of pizza, and without saying a word aloud, directions to the nearest pizza parlor are provided into your ear. In fact, thanks to GPS, they will already know where you are without you saying -- or nerve tapping -- a word. This is obviously well beyond Web 3.0.

Imagine, also, how this will affect mobile social networks. Users will be able to update their friends with their every thought or movement in real time. Just think what business models will be formed through voiceless communications and even how voiceless communications may in some scenarios allow us to communicate even better than we already do. For instance, international voiceless communications will allow us to have a conversation and conduct business with someone in a foreign language without ever actually saying a word. The computer will do the translating.

It all seems like something out of a wild sci-fi novel -- too far out to be real. But then again, I seem to recall that the communicators in the original Star Trek series looked an awful lot like today's flip phones. One has got to wonder, is technology improving our society, or perhaps is it getting to be too advanced for our own good?

The world used to comprise a disparate group made up of all kinds of people who followed their own traditions and customs, but technology is bringing people closer together and making our very round world extremely flat.

The promise of the Internet has always been about the ability to communicate. It began as a way for researchers to share data, matured with the evolution of IP, and has the potential to drastically change each and every part of our lives as we know them today.

As a PR guy, I think the Internet just may have the potential to take things too far. Currently we're living in a time where the relationship between humans and technology is controllable -- we're utilizing technology to our advantage and learning how to employ it to efficiently maximize our daily lives. However, with the evolution of new, advanced technologies, such as nerve tapping, we might be heading down a path of more harm than good. If computers are doing all the talking, we may end up in a civilization where people are less valued than the computer doing the communicating. If that happens, I'll be nerve tapping from Mars.