Recently I submitted a few ideas to Google regarding future directions that the Android gPhone or a parallel Android interface could take. Not hearing back from them, I decided to post my ideas here. Enjoy!

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"Idea One:

Beyond a simple cell phone, I would like a "Google Gauntlet", a wearable computer with the capacities of a laptop; with WiFi capabilities and the ability to pick up AM/FM radio, television broadcasts, telephone calls, and Bluetooth linkups.

The foundations of this are not necessarily a new concept. The character Leela from the hit animated show "Futurama" wears a stylish armband computer that is water proof and shock resistant, it has a microphone to pick up speech, a LCD flip up screen is embedded on the face and a small seam on the underside snaps open and closed to allow Leela to remove her arm if necessary.

In addition to these features I would also request a small camera on the back of the flip screen, plenty of memory to store music, video, documents and games, a recessed or touchscreen keyboard*, headphone jack, connector jack or wireless antenna for interface with other gauntlets, and perhaps most importantly of all parsing glove feeds allowing the movement of the fingers to be digitized, allowing 3D manipulation of virtual objects (playing an invisible piano), remote transference (controlling external objects like robots and garage doors with finger movements), and rapid data acquisition (text scanning and real-world hyperlinks). All of these capabilities coming together to form The End Gadget - the holy grail of pocket electronics realized in the amalgamation of the iPod, Blackberry, universal remote, cell phone, C-pen, portable TV-radio, credit card**, camcorder, Gameboy, GPS (this should be optional), projector, laser measurement sensor, purse (if one could fit a small storage bay inside somewhere), pedometer, and remote car key. This device is the computational Swiss army knife, which ideally should allow anyone to go about their day in the 21st century carrying nothing on them but the gauntlet and a comfy toga or bathrobe- regardless of the demands of their job.

Style and fashion become a concern, but different makes and models could be suited to different people for different jobs, and the customizability of the gauntlet could be extended if the screen covered the entire face of the exterior, (a bracelet version of the "digital table' technology being developed right now) in which case 'graphic sleeves' could be sold online allowing for any variety of wrist displays, from an illusory arm fish tank to haute obsidian for a fancy dress party.

*while a projection keyboard using lights and sensors to create a virtual typing space might be impressive, the screen would have to shift 90 degrees to allow a user to read what they are typing without wrenching their neck. Also I feel Google and Android could lead the way in creating a better keyboard key configuration. The keys of a keyboard were originally placed to prevent typists from working too quickly to avoid typewriter jams, and this anachronistic carry-over has done a great deal of damage to work and leisure productivity since the advent of the computer. Customers will readily adapt to the new configuration if cell-phone text messaging serves as any indice of mental flexibility, and ultimately I believe users will thank you for it.

** In Singapore cell phones come with magnetic strips allowing them to be used like credit cards. Similarly the Gauntlet could free up quite a bit of pocket space by allowing purchases to be made in a similar interaction.

>Programs for the Gauntlet

Portable interfaces like the Gphone bring the internet more into our daily lives, but with the Google Gauntlet one can also begin to shape the external world according to an internal cyber structure. Already with the gPhone and access to Google maps no customer will ever be lost again. No casual coffee shop argument will end due to the traditional bounds of the brain's storage capacity, since any empirical ambiguity will be readily searchable on Google (Obama's position on the Federal Debt Limit for instance) and best of all my mother will finally be able to stop worrying what the weather will be like every eight minutes since instantaneous updates will be available wherever she is 24 hours a day.

Can we go even further though?

Programs A: The Nintendo Wii is very popular since it utilizes movement in it's games for more activity and a fuller immersion into it's manufactured experiences. With the parsing abilities of the Google Gauntlet
no more will they necessarily be chained to their home entertainment systems for this.
If I suddenly get the urge to play laser tag with my friends it's too bad the we can't simply use our index fingers and thumbs with a counter system and sound effects at our wrists. It's too bad that I can't practice Kung Fu against a virtual opponent with pulse rate and extension measurements or have a "pocket fisherman" always ready to go if I am waiting in line at the mall. "Air Guitar" will become "Virtual Guitar", Theremin simulators a day-to-day toy to mess around with, "Dance Dance Revolution" offspring not just measuring foot position but entire body dynamics and posturing. One might even be able to use the three-dimensional city maps being developed at Google meshed with GPS technology to overlay fantastic worlds over normal reality to create earth-based VR systems that track your progress and position through your wrist. Better than any of this though will be the improvisational programming templates that will be flexible enough to create interactive malleable 3D cyber objects fitting any need. If your phone can allow you to quickly create conversational aides to send to anyone on earth that you might be speaking with, kinesthetics can become a new, less ambiguous communication paradigm with sensory feedback, object rotation, and responsive touch programming precise enough to give the illusion that you are holding a wet Koosh ball.

Programs B: For the curious mind the piteous advance of scanning tech. is maddening and egregious. Every time I see an insect on the ground I wish that I could check it against an online entomological database (or a completed Encyclopedia of Life if you are aware of that project) to see if I have discovered a new species. I wonder if the coins passing through my fingers are valued at thousands of times what I am using them for in inaccessible coin collecting catalogs, I wonder whether overflying planes and lights could be matched to air traffic control and satellite lists so that I could find out where the craft was heading, if it was a military operation and therefore not searchable, or whether it was an unlisted UFO that I could then report to SETI or the anti-spy force at space command.

I wish Google or Android had such ID programs. For consumer products this would be a revolution. If by picking up an RFID tagged product at the supermarket I could call up a DVD menu of sorts on my wrist that lists reviews of the product from different websites, the most recent commercials from the product's ad campaign, ratings on the products carbon manufacturing footprint and fair trade value, a Mr. Rogers "Picture Picture"- like film of how they made the product from Youtube to see what sort of contaminants might be going into it (lead in toys, etc.), virtual coupons, a calorie and nutritional overlay into a personal diet-tracking program if it is a food, FDA ratings on different medicines, competitors prices in the cyber marketplace, on and on and on, it would be wonderful! Very few people are using Google for this now, and it is a little more difficult comparison shopping from home when they are frequently updating shelves with newer products and daily sales. "Mytago" concepts of putting hyperlinks into real life are streamlined as well with a gauntlet, so anyone from performance artists to realtors will be able to hook experiences to immediately accessible web content if they so desire.

Programs C: When everyone is wearing remote controls on their person, controllable robots and automatons can become more popular in day to day life- because voice command recognition has failed in this regard over and over again. As our society quickly transforms itself from agrarian-based to post-industrial our worst jobs will hopefully be automated in the next few years so that no one will have to be a burger flipper or custodian unless they really want to (and energy can be saved from robot workers never going off site or needing food). Lightening quick implementation of information on the web should expand past the stock trading programs ruling Wall Street today. This then will be the domain of public-use mechanical agents. When I go into the IKEA website I want to use a giant claw hanging from the factory ceiling to move the pieces I have selected onto the giant robotruck- WITH MY GAUNTLET. I would like FollowMe Luggage at the airport keyed into my destination from its server in case it loses my signal, a robotic string quartet at my local library that takes all requests, and a fast food tacobot to feed all of the picnickers at the park on voluntary unemployment from it's online menu.

Each part of the robots usage- summoning, interaction, dismissal, requires a control mechanism that could exist inside the gauntlet, and if the examples I have drawn seem far fetched perhaps remote interactions will earlier manifest as giant interactive digital canvases on the sides of buildings, A simple four foot remote-controlled ball for children to play with, or robotic defense networks controllable by a single security guard utilizing an internet control program. Robotic surgeons and vehicles are already here, with Moore's law and assurances of better nanites just around the corner I doubt that "Googlebots" will merely be collecting documents from the web in the years to come.

So to review all of this I am essentially proposing a Nintendo power glove mounted with a screen and sensors turning it into the Hyper-Reality Probe from SeaQuest, the guide from Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", and the Green Ranger's flute from the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. If you wanted to contact Prof. Sankai at the University of Tsukuba I am sure you could also incorporate some of the "RoboSuit' technology he is working on and give users superstrength in one arm as well.

With a bit of smart human factors engineering the Google Gauntlet could become the impetus for a second human enlightenment. Just as the moveable type printing press opened books to the world people's lives could become enriched beyond measure by constant contact and interaction with the information on the web. Keypads and photos alone are not sufficient to feed the beast, and we have the technological capacity to do much better.

Idea Two:

I was only peripherally aware of the SteamPunk movement until I happened to see one day the Oscar-nominated short film "The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello" and now I have become quite a fan. In it the main character carries with him a personal computer inside of a pocket watch shell, which I think is a great idea. Phones today seem plastic and disposable, if Google could make an electronic heirloom merging fine Victorian artisanship with the Gphone's abilities I think that they would sell quite well. Pocket watches are shiny and fun to hold, and according to the New York Times SteamPunk is skyrocketing in popularity (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/fa...08PUNK.html?hp), so I felt I should suggest it, along with the purchase of a Google Zepplin.

Thanks for your time!"

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Basically it's my position that we are not properly utilizing the newest technologies and that a "leap forward" in portable computer capabilites might better pave the way for Kurzweil's transhumanist visions for the future. What do you think?