Black Mirror is a great show. Each episode revolves around dark and satirical stories about near future societies with some kind of association to new technologies (except for the prime minister and the pig episode, which is just plain weird).
The technology in every episode is really interesting as they all have a great impact on the way people live in the Black Mirror universe. It really gets you thinking as to how these technologies are invented or even the early stage of that technology.
One of my favourite episodes is “The Entire History of You”. It tells the story of a world where people have these ‘grains’ installed behind their ears that can record everything you do, see and hear. Anyone can play back their memories in their own eyes or “airplay” to a television (I’m assuming it’s called the iEye).
I believe I’ve stumbled across the ‘egg’ of this ‘grain’ technology.
Browsing through the web I stumbled across an article in Axios about how scientists have managed to use cells as a recording device for the first time. Put simply, scientists were able to record and retrieve information from a cell in chronological order. They programmed the cells to respond to a biological input by increasing and decreasing the distance within certain pieces of DNA allowing reconstruction of a timeline of the cell’s environment.
Though at it’s very early stages, isn’t this incredible? In the near future, we will be able to read detailed information about temperature and chemical levels in the body. Cells could record the way our body reacts to certain illnesses, medications and more. Like how our gut reacts to gluten, for example. We would be taking and recording our own medical records.
In the distant future perhaps the cells could be designed to track our sensory neurons and record sight. That sounds exciting AND kind of scary. What else could come of this discovery?
