Had an Epiphany moment

Today, at work, I was able to unfocus enough to imagine virtually "wearing" my browser, which is my dashboard, and where I have managed to "integrate" with/to various tools and actions that are required to do my job. I imagine that the next stage for me would be to design an XMPP application that actually integrates the various tools. Not sure where to begin. Perhaps here...

Book Reviews of Rainbow's End

• Pro: "As a piece of speculative fiction in the classic vein, this is ridiculously good." - http://zbooks.blogspot.com/2007/08/rainbows-end-by-vernor-vinge.html
• Pro: "What a great SciFi thriller this is! I've only (to the best of my recollection) ever read one Vernor Vinge novel before, and while it was good, this one is superlative! Genre? I'd have to call it cyberpunk influenced, for sure, since it takes place in the not too distant future when today's experiments in virtual reality, Internet search engines and the like, have very definitely been taken to the next level." - http://tillabooks.blogspot.com/2007/07/rainbows-end-by-vernor-vinge.html
  
• Con: "I thought A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky were fascinating books: Vinge is able to write quite convincingly about non-humanoid aliens, not just as ideas, but as characters. In the Realtime books, bobble technology had me hooked. I searched for his earlier books Tatja Grimm's World and The Witling in used bookstores, and wasn't disappointed when I finally found them. Vinge is one of my favorite science fiction authors, so I was ready to love this book." - http://12frogs.com/reading/reviews/2007/05/rainbows-end/
  

Second Life has a new challenge

Can Second Life adapt to this suggestion? Make an Epiphany Suit (clothes and contact lenses) that allow the user to interface with Second Life? Alternatively, are there any companies looking to start up this idea as a reality?

Should an Epiphany Suit be created? What are the benefits? What are the cons?

JITT (Just-in-time training)

"Vernor Vinge speculates on the application of technology to achieve brainwashing in Rainbows End (ISBN 0-312-85684-9), portraying separately the dangers of JITT (Just-in-time training) and the specter of YGBM (You gotta believe me). This picks up on themes of "mindrot" and controlled "Focus" in Vinge's earlier novel A Deepness in the Sky." Wikipedia

Plot Summary: "Rainbow's End - A Novel with One Foot in the Future", by Vernor Vinge

"The novel introduces us to Robert Gu, a man slowly recovering from Alzheimer's disease thanks to advances in medical technology. As his faculties return, Robert (who always has been slightly technophobic) must adapt to a very different world, where almost every object is networked and mediated-reality technology is commonplace. Robert, formerly a world-renowned poet but with a notoriously mean-spirited personality, must also learn how to change and how to rebuild relationships with his estranged family. At the same time, Robert and his granddaughter Miri are drawn into a complex plot involving a traitorous intelligence officer, an intellect of frightening (and possibly superhuman) competence hiding behind an avatar of an anthropomorphic rabbit, and ominous new mind control technology with profound implications." Wikipedia

Had previously read "A Fire Upon the Deep"...

I got my copy of "Rainbow's End - A Novel with One Foot in the Future" (by Vernor Vinge), from a friend, who enjoys Science Fiction a bit more than I usually do. I had previously read A Fire Upon the Deep and have it as one of my favorite Science Fiction book of all times. Others that are on that list, are Snow Crash and The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson, and of course, Neuromancer by William Gibson.

• The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, by Neal Stephenson
• [ Google Books | ISFDB.org | wikipedia ] - the 1995 Winner, Hugo Award for Best Novel and was nominated for Nebula Award for Best Novel
• "The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It is a bildungsroman focused on a young girl named Nell, and set in a world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. Some main themes include: education, social class, cultural tribalism, and the nature of artificial intelligence." wikipedia
• Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
• [ Google Books | wikipedia ] - "Snow Crash is Neal Stephenson's third novel, published in 1992. It follows in the footsteps of cyberpunk novels by such authors as William Gibson and Rudy Rucker, but differs from its predecessors in that it includes much satire and black humor. "
  
• A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge
• [ Google Books | ISFDB.org | wikipedia ] - "A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) is a science fiction novel written by Vernor Vinge, an award-winning space opera about superhuman intelligences, well-developed aliens, variable physics, space battles, love, betrayal, genocide, and Usenet. A Fire Upon the Deep won the Hugo Award in 1993 (tied with Doomsday Book by Connie Willis)." wikipedia.
• Rainbow's End - A Novel with One Foot in the Future, by Vernor Vinge
• [ Google Books | Wikipedia ] - "The novel introduces us to Robert Gu, a man slowly recovering from Alzheimer's disease thanks to advances in medical technology. As his faculties return, Robert (who always has been slightly technophobic) must adapt to a very different world, where almost every object is networked and mediated-reality technology is commonplace. Robert, formerly a world-renowned poet but with a notoriously mean-spirited personality, must also learn how to change and how to rebuild relationships with his estranged family. At the same time, Robert and his granddaughter Miri are drawn into a complex plot involving a traitorous intelligence officer, an intellect of frightening (and possibly superhuman) competence hiding behind an avatar of an anthropomorphic rabbit, and ominous new mind control technology with profound implications." Wikipedia
  
• Neuromancer, by William Gibson
  
• [ Google Books | ISFDB.org | wikipedia] - "Neuromancer is considered "the archetypal cyberpunk work", and its winning the Hugo, Nebula, and Dick Awards legitimized cyberpunk as a mainstream branch of science fiction literature." wikipedia.
• "William Ford Gibson (born 1948-03-17) is an American-Canadian^[16] writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction.^[17] In 1982, Gibson coined the term cyberspace and popularized the concept in his debut novel, Neuromancer (1984)." wikipedia.

Virtual Reality Goggles get an upgrade, to Contact Lenses...

We have seen Virtual Reality Goggles in fiction, and now in reality, they exist, but in "Rainbow's End", they have evolved to contact lenses. Two movies come to mind, where virtual reality goggles were depicted:

• Demolition Man (IMDB, Wikipedia) - (1993) "Physical contact was recognized as causing the spread of disease and is now seen as unusual. "Sex" is no longer a physical act for the same reasons, and even kissing is not condoned. Instead, "Vir-Sex" is performed by using sex simulators worn on the participants' heads to replace physical intercourse."

• Brainstorm (IMDB, Wikipedia)- (1983) "The story involves a team of scientists which includes estranged husband-and-wife, Michael and Karen Brace (played by Walken and Wood) and Michael's research colleague, Lillian Reynolds (played by Louise Fletcher) who co-invent a special recorder and player device which allows sensations and higher brain functions to be scanned directly from the brain, taped and reproduced, allowing another person to experience them."

YGBM - You-Gotta-Believe-Me...

'YGBM. That was a bit of science-fiction jargon from the turn of the century: You-Gotta-Believe-Me. That is, mind control. Weak, social forms of YGBM drove all human history. For more than a hundred years, the goal of irresistible persuasion had been a topic of academic study. For thirty years it had been a credible technological goal. And for ten, some version of it had been feasible in well-controlled laboratory settings.' "Rainbow's End - A Novel with One Foot in the Future"

"Vernor Vinge speculates on the application of technology to achieve brainwashing in Rainbows End (ISBN 0-312-85684-9), portraying separately the dangers of JITT (Just-in-time training) and the specter of YGBM (You gotta believe me). This picks up on themes of "mindrot" and controlled "Focus" in Vinge's earlier novel A Deepness in the Sky." Wikipedia

Another component is SMing...

Another component is SMing (Simple Messaging), between two (2) individuals or amongst three (3) or more individuals - this is used, for example, for two persons to have a private messaging going on during a verbal conversation with a third person.

"Yes! I've read about sming. It's like the old instant messaging, except no one can see you're communicating."

"Apparently, Winnie and Carlos were not seeing the sming."

"The class period was almost over anyway. Juan looked up at the billowing tent fabric. He was a little discouraged. He had covered almost everyone on the list, and Winston Blount was the best he'd found: someone who couldn't even sming."

More...

The ability to do Searches using the Epiphany Suit

One key component of the Epiphany suit is the ability to do research (or searches) rapidly.

'Lazy bums, thought Robert, and wondered at Sharif's earlier enthusiasm for "real books". But he had noticed the trend even in his own teaching days. It wasn't just the students who refused to get their hands dirty. Even so-called researchers ignored the universe of things that weren't online.'

'"What? Oh. I'm getting to that! Anyway, after our protest tactics fizzled, I began to do some research." Tommie patted his laptop. "Newsgroups, chat, search engines -- I used them all, along with crazy stuff that looks more like online betting than anything else. Maybe the hardest part was to do it all without alerting the Feds. That slowed me up, but eventually I got a pretty good picture of the labs' security. It's what you'd expect of a critical national security site. Serious stuff, but clunky. The system is password and user-intrinsic oriented, and mostly automatic. The intrinsic is a standard biometric -- from certain officers in the U.S. protective services. And guess who happens to be nearby and on the access list?"'

About...

As read about in "Rainbow's End - A Novel with One Foot in the Future", by Vernor Vinge, this site is dedicated to the vision of the "epiphany" suit referenced throughout the book.

"In the novel augmented reality is dominant, with humans interacting with virtual overlays of reality almost all of the time. This is accomplished by wearing smart clothing and contact lenses that can overlay and replace what the eye would normally see with computer graphics. " - Wikipedia.

These articles of clothing and contact lenses, are called "wearables".

"He was beginning to feel confident with Epiphany, although he might never be as skillful as kids who grew up wearing." -

"Epiphany Rule Number One, what they pound on in all the instructions: Full access is only for parents and spouses -- and then only if you like to take chances. Whether it was her tone or his need Sharif was never sure, but he reached out and touched the empty air. He matched the pointing gesture with a lowering of security. The tingle in his fingers was surely his imagination, but now the air between them was full of binding certificates."
- Rainbow's End - A Novel with One Foot in the Future

I don't know the legality of it, but the book appears to be available on-line at
http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html and http://www.scribd.com/doc/548822/Vernor-Vinge-Rainbows-End

Obviously you can buy "Rainbow's End" at a bookstore or online (e.g. Amazon, eBay, etc).

Plot Summary: "The novel introduces us to Robert Gu, a man slowly recovering from Alzheimer's disease thanks to advances in medical technology. As his faculties return, Robert (who always has been slightly technophobic) must adapt to a very different world, where almost every object is networked and mediated-reality technology is commonplace. Robert, formerly a world-renowned poet but with a notoriously mean-spirited personality, must also learn how to change and how to rebuild relationships with his estranged family. At the same time, Robert and his granddaughter Miri are drawn into a complex plot involving a traitorous intelligence officer, an intellect of frightening (and possibly superhuman) competence hiding behind an avatar of an anthropomorphic rabbit, and ominous new mind control technology with profound implications." Wikipedia