ShawnDriscoll
SOC-14 1K
Watches, if they're still called that. Are built into peoples arms. See arms.
Traveller Watches
- Thread starter kilemall
- Start date
Watches, if they're still called that. Are built into peoples arms. See arms.
See Ghost in the Shell Second Gig for why implanted electronics may not be such a great/universal thing.
Independent of the hack thing, I could see spacers, marines and scouts not wanting physical vulnerability to external enviornments on their bodies via the implant vector.
Yeah I think implants will not be universal, at least in the commonly accepted Third Imperium type empire. See psionics for example.
As an external device I think I can boil it down to a few primary functions:
1 - Comms Relay (includes local, ship and several other time/date stamps)
2 - Inertial Locator / Magnetic Compass
3 - Atmosphere Sniffer (including local pressure)
4 - Library Data (with integral small holoprojector)
5 - Computer/0
6 - Biometric Readout
TL 10, Cr100?...
As an external device I think I can boil it down to a few primary functions:
1 - Comms Relay (includes local, ship and several other time/date stamps)
2 - Inertial Locator / Magnetic Compass
3 - Atmosphere Sniffer (including local pressure)
4 - Library Data (with integral small holoprojector)
5 - Computer/0
6 - Biometric Readout
TL 10, Cr100?...
Way back in college (mid 80s) I had the "Everything Watch" that started as a plain watch. Then you could add in more memory, holo-recorder/players, audio recording/player (much longer duration), James Bond laser, comms, a few other things such as inertial locator. GPS was not a commercial thing at the time I was aware of, but since then most of my Imperial planets do have a standardized public GPS system that I would allow the watch to attach to. I even broke down costs for the enhancements. No real idea about an OS for the thing, but was extrapolating from being in the CS curriculum as well as reading a LOT of SF.
Never posited a size for the thing. I doubt I have the papers on that but I may look into my old notebook that I still have decades later...
Never posited a size for the thing. I doubt I have the papers on that but I may look into my old notebook that I still have decades later...
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
The problem isn't horsepower, it's the interface, that's large enough to be discernible and manipulatable, and small enough not to be distracting.
Augmented Reality handles that problem. The wrist box is but a host for the AR system.
I feel like the watch becomes a platform, much more than it is today. Certainly in the Far Future anything could be a “platform,” that is, a something that hosts different modular and extendable capabilities, but I suspect that even then the best platforms will be ones we’re used to (eyewear, watches, jewelry) and ones that are just very convenient (implants).
The platforms can all “talk” to each other, one of the aspects of being a platform. The watch talks to the eyewear, and the implant, and the ship, and the external net, whatever that happens to be. There are protocols, safeguards, and so on.
Style, fashion and form are still a thing.
Perhaps there’s an “anchor” platform device, one that drives the rest. Right now in our world that’s the mobile. It feeds and accepts telemetry with the smartwatch, or the FitBit, and the car. I suspect in the Far Future anything easily worn of implanted can be an anchor device, or maybe all of them and none of them are, each sharing and providing redundancy.
As for interface, really the sky’s the limit. There is the discreet real estate of a few cm^2 of the face, but that’s just where you start. Haptics (the vibrations, etc), the tones are axes along which information can flow; in the show The Expanse you see people flicking data, files, and whatnot from one device to another (say, from a watch to a large wall monitor) to get a better view, or show everyone something. In the future there will be other interfaces- links to nerves stimulate emotions, images, sounds, and so on that only the wearer can perceive.
Jon Watts in his Clement and Earth Sectors setting has cool hand comps that do a lot of these things. The next TL jump there, it’s the size of a ring, and the next it’s something implanted. All are platforms that you can add functionality to. In addition to the above they can project holographically.
If I were creating an NPC, a seasoned Scout let’s say, and I didn’t go the way of straight analog mechanical just to be anachronistically cliche, I’d say her watch could do these things:
- Serve as an anchor device, communicating with all other anchors and external systems
- Could add/extend functionality
- Did biomonitoring (because it’s actually in contact with her body in a point that facilitates such stuff)
- Store personal data - her ID, credentials, certs, licenses, keys and so on. Pass them on with a flick or other gesture.
- Provides a convenient audio communication focus (a la Dick Tracy), whether it was doing the communicating or tethering to a device that was, or both
- House environmental sensors that’d be handy if she didn’t happen to be wearing a vaccsuit. She could get information (a certain turn of the wrist reveals the temp, on the face) or receive a telltale haptic signal if there was a pressure/rad/moisture delta
- Also along these lines, it’d be the main “communicator” of things like messages received, bio and environmental changes, and other telemetry simply by virtue of its location, and always being worn in a way that facilitates a lot of different kinds of subtle information passing. Forget having to fish a mobile out of her pocket. The eyewear (if present) gets the stuff more suited to visual scanning, but I can imagine a lot of useful data that could be transmitted with just haptics, tone, the face, and maybe a temp differential. These cold be inputs from other systems, that watch is merely a conveniently placed way to pass the info.
- IMTU, Scouts have an eclectic culture; the watch would say something about the wearer - postings, time in, farthest place been, and so on. It’s a point of conversation between those who know, and often a conscious addition to the gear carried everyday.
- Heck, it even tells time…
For me and in my games, power and storage are non-topics; solved problems.
The platforms can all “talk” to each other, one of the aspects of being a platform. The watch talks to the eyewear, and the implant, and the ship, and the external net, whatever that happens to be. There are protocols, safeguards, and so on.
Style, fashion and form are still a thing.
Perhaps there’s an “anchor” platform device, one that drives the rest. Right now in our world that’s the mobile. It feeds and accepts telemetry with the smartwatch, or the FitBit, and the car. I suspect in the Far Future anything easily worn of implanted can be an anchor device, or maybe all of them and none of them are, each sharing and providing redundancy.
As for interface, really the sky’s the limit. There is the discreet real estate of a few cm^2 of the face, but that’s just where you start. Haptics (the vibrations, etc), the tones are axes along which information can flow; in the show The Expanse you see people flicking data, files, and whatnot from one device to another (say, from a watch to a large wall monitor) to get a better view, or show everyone something. In the future there will be other interfaces- links to nerves stimulate emotions, images, sounds, and so on that only the wearer can perceive.
Jon Watts in his Clement and Earth Sectors setting has cool hand comps that do a lot of these things. The next TL jump there, it’s the size of a ring, and the next it’s something implanted. All are platforms that you can add functionality to. In addition to the above they can project holographically.
If I were creating an NPC, a seasoned Scout let’s say, and I didn’t go the way of straight analog mechanical just to be anachronistically cliche, I’d say her watch could do these things:
- Serve as an anchor device, communicating with all other anchors and external systems
- Could add/extend functionality
- Did biomonitoring (because it’s actually in contact with her body in a point that facilitates such stuff)
- Store personal data - her ID, credentials, certs, licenses, keys and so on. Pass them on with a flick or other gesture.
- Provides a convenient audio communication focus (a la Dick Tracy), whether it was doing the communicating or tethering to a device that was, or both
- House environmental sensors that’d be handy if she didn’t happen to be wearing a vaccsuit. She could get information (a certain turn of the wrist reveals the temp, on the face) or receive a telltale haptic signal if there was a pressure/rad/moisture delta
- Also along these lines, it’d be the main “communicator” of things like messages received, bio and environmental changes, and other telemetry simply by virtue of its location, and always being worn in a way that facilitates a lot of different kinds of subtle information passing. Forget having to fish a mobile out of her pocket. The eyewear (if present) gets the stuff more suited to visual scanning, but I can imagine a lot of useful data that could be transmitted with just haptics, tone, the face, and maybe a temp differential. These cold be inputs from other systems, that watch is merely a conveniently placed way to pass the info.
- IMTU, Scouts have an eclectic culture; the watch would say something about the wearer - postings, time in, farthest place been, and so on. It’s a point of conversation between those who know, and often a conscious addition to the gear carried everyday.
- Heck, it even tells time…
For me and in my games, power and storage are non-topics; solved problems.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Complete platform.
Heh. And Ewwwwwww lol
And also, that's a lotta space taken up; what's going on, there?
And also, that's a lotta space taken up; what's going on, there?
I imagine that personal electronic devices of all kinds will be supplanted by a pervasive mesh of digital services in high-TL worlds. As long as you're anywhere near civilization or a ship, you have access.
Interface with it will be all-channels / any-channel: vocal, gesture, subvocal, neural implant. All of it will be interpreted by AI to "do what I mean."
Personal electronic devices will only be needed for going into places where there isn't a tech grid. In the Traveller universe, that's any low-TL world or the vacuum of space. Even deserts and oceans in high-TL worlds will have coverage. Probably even within 10-20 AU of any service beacon in a star system with sufficient tech.
Even then, you just wear a small button or something (see: Star Trek insignia) that forms an interface back to the ship and provides all services through it.
Sensors ought to be universal and modular. They'll have a small handle part that might have its own computing and readout but probably that's an optional plug-in for when you can't use the mesh network for that stuff. So the handle is just a handle with a mesh connection and some ports. Then you plug in whatever sensor module you want on it. It collects data and streams it to the handle, which interprets it to you via mesh or output plug-in.
Energy also becomes universal and modular. All of them are quickly rechargeable. You need different sizes for the regular reasons, but they're designed to fit batteries smaller than the preferred kind and run, just not as long. Large "brick" batteries and larger power sources have wired (or wireless!) interfaces into every device via a port and step up or down voltage/amperage for the device automatically as required.
Or energy becomes a "solved problem" and tiny fusion power sources the size of a watch battery -- or smaller -- are just inside everything and it's never a thing. They run more or less forever, or decades or something, and rarely need replacing.
Just imagine all technology as having a computer as powerful as a high-end computer server that is the size of a grain of rice and a "forever" battery the same size. Imagine a set in every object you own, including things we don't put computers in today, like shirts and mugs, and imagine what can be done with it. Imagine that everything can talk to everything else and make good decisions about it, and that somehow, most of the security problems with all this are solved.
Interface with it will be all-channels / any-channel: vocal, gesture, subvocal, neural implant. All of it will be interpreted by AI to "do what I mean."
Personal electronic devices will only be needed for going into places where there isn't a tech grid. In the Traveller universe, that's any low-TL world or the vacuum of space. Even deserts and oceans in high-TL worlds will have coverage. Probably even within 10-20 AU of any service beacon in a star system with sufficient tech.
Even then, you just wear a small button or something (see: Star Trek insignia) that forms an interface back to the ship and provides all services through it.
Sensors ought to be universal and modular. They'll have a small handle part that might have its own computing and readout but probably that's an optional plug-in for when you can't use the mesh network for that stuff. So the handle is just a handle with a mesh connection and some ports. Then you plug in whatever sensor module you want on it. It collects data and streams it to the handle, which interprets it to you via mesh or output plug-in.
Energy also becomes universal and modular. All of them are quickly rechargeable. You need different sizes for the regular reasons, but they're designed to fit batteries smaller than the preferred kind and run, just not as long. Large "brick" batteries and larger power sources have wired (or wireless!) interfaces into every device via a port and step up or down voltage/amperage for the device automatically as required.
Or energy becomes a "solved problem" and tiny fusion power sources the size of a watch battery -- or smaller -- are just inside everything and it's never a thing. They run more or less forever, or decades or something, and rarely need replacing.
Just imagine all technology as having a computer as powerful as a high-end computer server that is the size of a grain of rice and a "forever" battery the same size. Imagine a set in every object you own, including things we don't put computers in today, like shirts and mugs, and imagine what can be done with it. Imagine that everything can talk to everything else and make good decisions about it, and that somehow, most of the security problems with all this are solved.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Watches basically keep track of time, what you do with it is up to you.
Then you can apply that time tracking ability in a number ways, usually by keeping track of space.
Then you can apply that time tracking ability in a number ways, usually by keeping track of space.
