A Google Glass wearer poses at the Belgium's Google headquarters in Brussels. Are these the start of a wearables revolution? <\/p>\n
STORY HIGHLIGHTS <\/p>\n
Editor's note: Gerd Leonhard is a futurist, speaker and CEO of TheFuturesAgency, based in Basel, Switzerland. He is also the host and creator of The Future Show, which you can watch here. Follow Gerd on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gerd Leonhard. <\/p>\n
Basel (CNN) -- Imagine a world where computing becomes invisible, like your thoughts. A world where the interface between our senses, our minds and brains, and a digital device that emulates human traits or which augments our own capabilities becomes seamless, and the border between \"it\" and \"us\" becomes opaque. <\/p>\n
Imagine instant access to the world's data and content, without typing or without even searching -- think GoogleNow x100, projected onto your iris. The power of IBM's Watson at the disposal of every doctor, with a blink of an eye or a simple voice command. Anticipatory services that know what you need before you do. Constant reads of my body's status via my wristwatch. <\/p>\n
Convenient. Incredible. Empowering. Beautiful. Addictive. Indispensable. Scary. Here soon. <\/p>\n
Vast progress and vast curses <\/p>\n
\"Nothing vast enters the lives of mortals without a curse\" Greek tragedian Sophocles once said. And plenty of curses are sure to emerge when it's about wearables, which are powered by big data, the cloud, artificial intelligence, not to forget good old-fashioned capitalism. <\/p>\n
It is the danger of exponential unintended consequences we must start to consider, because we probably don't have the choice to \"just say no\" -- wearable computing is as certain as mobile phones. <\/p>\n
In his 1964 book \"Understanding Media,\" Marshall McLuhan famously called media \"the extensions of man.\" If we can define wearables as \"media\" then, following mobile devices, wearables are the next logical step in this rapid evolution. <\/p>\n
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Is your wearable tech watching you?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Google Glass wearer poses at the Belgium's Google headquarters in Brussels. Are these the start of a wearables revolution? Continue reading