The Future Is Now

The saying goes "the future is now" and that's no cliche.  I've always been fascinated at how so much of what Gene Rodenberry conceived of when he was creating Star Trek really is becoming reality.  Last week at a tech expo LG unveiled its new "wrist watch" that does basically everything your I Phone or Blackberry can do.  The next issue of Entertainment Weekly will have a video player embedded into one of its pages that will start playing an ad for the CBS fall tv line-up when you turn to it - kind of like the newspapers in Harry Potter.  And researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Georgia Tech are working on "smart clothes".  In a nutshell, the very fibres of the clothing you're wearing will have electrical capacity sewn into them.   The military developed the technology first, designing a shirt that could allow medical personnel to find the exact location of a soldier's bullet wound immediatley.  Other medical applications are exciting - for instance baby sleepers could monitor vital signs to avoid things like SIDS.  Athletes would benefit from this too.  Levi's musical jackets with all fabric keypads are cool, they're on the market now in Europe.  But hey, what happens if someone throws you in a pool?  Yikes...