MODERN TECHNOLOGY CONTINUES
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Make that data iner, the 21^st century counterpart. While Levi's is using the ICD+ line to target millennial workers-road warriors of one sort of another-other companies are going directly for the mainstream with fashionable wearable technology. Nike is integrating MP3 players into its sportswear, and Sallsonite launched their Black label Travel Wear line, rigged with simple devices like reading lamps and alarm clocks. Even IBM, the quintessential example of corporate geek doll, is dabbling in computer couture these days. While one division of Big Blue is collaborating with Xybernaut on the next generation of wearable computing for commercial applications, IBM's future-forward Almaden Research Center, in the heart of Silicon Valley, is developing a line of digital jewelry created by Denise Chan, a recent graduate of Stanford's School of Engineering, who hooked up with the company at a job fair. As legend has it, the idea was sparked by an out-of-character comment from Almaden Director Robert Morris, who muttered that he' d be willing to pierce his ears if it negated the need to wear a headset for mobile communication. The result? Demo devices like earrings with tiny onboard speakers and a ring with a built-in Track Point, the nipple-like cursor controller found on IBM ThinkPads. Further along are the elegant offerings of Charmed Technology, a Los Angeles firm that spun out of the MIT Media Lab to commercialize wearable-computing couture. Indeed, the CTO of the company is Thad Starner, who, along with fellow Media Lab alum Mann, the first cyborg I closely encountered, are arguably the preeminent envelope pushers in wearable computing. Currently, the company is best known for its successful series of Brave New Unwired World fashion shows which merge spacey runway fashion with wearable technology from numerous developers, including Xybernaut, Motorola and others. Their first two signature products, due out this month (2000), include the Charmed Communicator, a PC in a belt buckle with a display inside sunglasses; and the Charmed Badge, which automatically transmits its wearer's electronic business card to other users via infrared. Katrina Barillova {who formerly worked in the security surveillance industry) is the 27-Year-old Czechoslovakia born chief operating officer of Charmed. People are afraid to look like cyborgs, she has said. Our goal is to make technology fashionable and to incorporate these items into everyday lifestyles. While Charmed, along with Levi's, IBM and other comies, is racing toward making aesthetic improvements of today's wearable computing, the social impact of the technology's far-future applications remain largely unresolved. And the annoying symphony of cell-phone rings is just the first cue encouraging us to consider how wearable technology can become as banal as it is empowering. Extrapolate a scenario from this example: the impressively inexpensive yet conceptually advanced key-ring computer, the Japanese Lovegety. Users enter into the Tamagotchi-like device whether they're in the mood for love, chat, .'drink or movie and the Lovegety beeps whenever they're within 30 feet of another Lovegety carrying individual with whom they're compatible. Now expand the Lovegety's preference possibilities (foreign films, loves kids, etc.) along with its range, so it can cover entire neighborhoods or even towns. At its worst, it turns every city into a giant singles bar, Donath says. A next-generation Lovegety could bring the Buddy Lists of virtual chatrooms into the physical realm, providing a pleasant surprise by alerting you that your best friend happens to be the next cafe over, or tracking your child if she's lost. The key for designers is to incorporate a host of custom-control features into the product, enabling you to block what information you'd like to broadcast and to pick and choose who receives it. Wearable computers are not handcuffs, Pratt says. No one forces you to wear them.

True, but even if you're not wearing one they still can make you feel like a prisoner of the datasphere. Take the research of ph.D. candidate Bradley Rhodes at the MIT Media Lab. Rhodes has designed a system he calls a Remembrance Agent, a program that continuously watches over the shoulder of the wearer of a wearable computer and displays one-line summaries of notes, files, old e-mail, papers and other text information that might be helpful to the user at any given moment. The benefits of having a Remembrance Agent in your peripheral vision are enormous. Picture wandering around a museum and having background on each artifact you see automatically pop into view. Or the notes from a , talk someone gave that you saw several years ago displayed in your peripheral vision the instant you shake that person's hand in real life. Now imagine meeting a person wearing a Remembrance Agent system at a dinner party. As soon as your name is entered into his wearable computer, either transmitted by the likes of a Charmed Badge, or entered manually, a full web search of you begins. The problem (actually, not a problem), is that a person is much more than their home page, resume or list of favorite films. The physical world around us has lots of information in it that we are subconsciously picking up, Donath says. When we add a whole new data-stream, we really need to think about how we control it, especially when you could be paying attention to it later. Otherwise, you may lose a lot of subtle, hard-to-articulate information if you're looking at a person's Web site instead of into their eyes. Turning off the Remembrance Agent may be akin to dispensing with a built-in bullshit detector. But you can always do your Web search after the party ends, instead of missing out on the very things that make us yearn for real-world interaction to begin with. I'm curious to what extent people are going to adapt to these new devices as opposed to the devices' adapting to , our existing mores. Donath adds. And, lest we forget, there's always the off switch. [Who will control that is the Anti-Christ and his forces, be careful you're not deceived. The mere fact you have a cell phone suggests that you have already begun in the deception.]

All three aspects of technology are working together, complimentary to each other or even vital to the other. The purpose is to deceive and ensnare the soul. We will later find out that the UFO phenomenon is a ploy by satan and his angels. I said that because I want to make a quote by Jaques Valle about Modern technology, he is the most renowned astro-physicist. He said, "I believe there is a machinery of mass manipulation behind the UFO phenomenon...they are helping create a new belief system...they are designed to help change belief systems, and that the technology we observe is only the incidental support for a world-wide enterprise of subliminal seduction." Or, in essence, deception. My suggestion is that "having food and raiment let us be therewith content" (1 Tim 6:8). Because gain is not godliness but "But godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Tim 6:6). Another thing, this is a great distraction from God and the techno fad chasers are ensnaring their own souls and others unawares. Remember, most things around us that are demonology will never look that way, that's why the bible keeps telling us that the devil "deceive the nations...,“ that is, masked the evil with convenience and benefits.