Contact
Day 94 of Writing
A computer that can see everything you do and display information directly in front of your eyes seems like something many of us could use. It could provide visual directions, identify places, objects, and people, help you see better, and provide other useful information without needing to whip out your phone or look away from what you are doing. It certainly seemed useful to Google, so they launched Google Glass in 2013.
It seemed like a good idea, but a very high price and privacy considerations kept it from getting widespread adoption. The camera was controversial at the time, because no one knew when you were recording them on video. The bottom line for this type of device is that it is crippled without a camera. I think, in the long run, that privacy argument will become outweighed by the functionality.
While Google Glass still exists, with the latest version just released last February with Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 (and it is still a developer edition), it no longer gets the headlines it used to. It is still expensive at $1200, and you still look goofy wearing it.
Another approach is to have the glasses project the image directly onto the retina. The earliest account of this type of tech in science fiction that I know of is in the classic 1952 novel by Frederick Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth, The Space Merchants. It could soon be a reality. Bosch is developing Smartglasses that use lasers to paint an image overlay directly onto the retina of your eye. The image is always in focus, although the glasses have to be custom fitted. It is cool tech, but definitely interim tech. They lack a camera, which is smart for now, but they also lack audio, and I think future consumers will want both. They are at least a year away.
A lot of people do not like wearing glasses, plus everyone knows you are wearing smart glass. That is why in the story I chose to go with smart contact lenses instead. These are not as far away as you might think. The contact lenses used in the story are just slightly more advanced versions of contact lenses being developed today.
UC San Diego developed a soft contact lens that can zoom in just by blinking twice. Sony, Google, and Samsung all have patents for high tech contacts. There really are contact lenses with cameras built-in. Google Lens (software that visually identifies objects, even translating printed signs) already exists, and it is no stretch to imagine it being utilized in a contact lens camera system along with a more advanced facial recognition system.
Last year French engineering company IMT Atlantique announced the first autonomous contact lens incorporating a flexible micro-battery. It uses a lightweight lens capable of not only providing augmented vision to users but relaying visual information wirelessly.
Mojo Vision has a 14,000 pixel-per-inch display with eye-tracking, image stabilization, and a custom wireless radio built-in to contact lenses. While it is at least two years away from shipping, the plans are for it to offer a sophisticated heads up display controlled by looking in your peripheral vision. The display is tiny, focusing directly into the retina. It can correct vision, zoom in on things, and help you see in the dark. The company is for real and has come a long way in developing something that seems so futuristic.
How do I deal with privacy issues a decade from now? In my future, privacy rights have been largely forfeited. The government is always watching. It is the price people are willing to pay for the technology that makes their life easier. That requires my characters to have some pretty sophisticated technology themselves to keep their movements and activities invisible.
What’s Up with Us
Our new garden is growing like crazy. The herbs have made an appearance in many delicious meals.
All the plants are edible herbs except for the Kangaroo Paw and the Amyrillis to the right.
We have two elevated tomato plants with an LED grow light that Alexa turns on in the evening for a few hours to give them extra daylight. They only get four to five hours of direct sunlight in the sunniest spot we could find. It seems to be working so far, as before the grow light we had a couple of tomatoes set and now a little more than a week later we have over 20 set. The proof will be in the tasting though. Sadly, we don’t have a control tomato, which would have made this experiment much more interesting and informative.
It got off to a rocky start as a morning dove immediately moved in. She built her nest, such as it was, right in the pot. Even if I wanted her to stay and happily raise her brood, a little rain would flood the pot and potentially drown them. We just got a pretty heavy rain, unusual for this time of year, so I am glad that we had evicted her by then.
The dove must know ours is a house with magicians in it.
The picture above is purple because the grow light puts out purple light. It is full spectrum light, though, as evidenced by the rainbows that the CDs throw off. It also makes the red and pink leaves and flowers in the tropical garden seem to glow.
As I mentioned in a previous entry, we have a mosquito problem. I hate putting insecticide on my skin. I had just planted a species of lemon balm with a higher citronella content (it is sometimes called citronella balm). You just have to rub a few leaves on your exposed skin. It worked. The only place I got bit was the only place I missed – my elbows.
We need a better solution. I knew that there are biologicals you can put in the water where the mosquitos lay their eggs that will kill the larvae. So, I would need a body of water. Well, then, why not also add a waterfall?
In the last ten years I have built three waterfalls. The first was just a small pond with a single fall.
My first waterfall seen through the ferns
The next was more complicated as it also included a stream that disappeared into the rocks. You could turn it off and all of the water would flow underground and out of site. The pump was buried in a pit, covered with a sturdy milk crate, and then buried under a lot of rock.
The last was a stream with a fall at one end and a pond at the other. In the picture below you can see the fountainhead with the fall. A stream curves around the tree into a small pond which was next to a hot tub. It was lovely there. They were all great fun to build, but this is the one where I felt I had tuned the sound properly. The placement of rocks and how far the water falls controls the volume and pitch. There is a whole science behind it, but it is also an art. The Getty Museum has a water feature where they had experts come in and tune it and it sounds wonderful. It uses a cascade instead of a fall but it is the same basic idea. They use different sized rocks along the flow to create different sounds.
You make the basic structure of the waterfall (in this case, one main fall and several smaller falls) with cheap cinder blocks. Then you lay an underlayer that protects the liner from anything sharp. The liner goes on top of all that. You use nicer quality rock to make the spills and to cover as much of the exposed liner as possible.
I have never built an above ground waterfall, so that is now my new challenge. To match the area where we are growing a lot of tropical plants, it will have a tropical theme. Belle acquired a bunch of volcanic rock for free from Craigslist. She got about 150 pounds of small black volcanic rock that we used to fill in between all the pots in the planter. She also got around 100 pounds of larger volcanic rock to go around the waterfall. A pump is on the way. We have a spillway and an underliner. We still need a liner.
Run the plumbing, fill it with water, turn on the pump, and you have a waterfall. It is a very creative and fun project and easier than you might think. And now, I will use it to also kill mosquitos!