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"[Science fiction is ] That branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Neural Lace | ||
| An interface between the brain and computer facilities. |
This probably isn't the earliest use of this idea by Banks, but it's the best i can find.
| “You have some importance within your own specialist department, Quietus, and within the Special Circumstances section of Contact. You are known. You are, within certain elites, famous. If you talk, people will listen.”
“Only if I remember. You said I might not remember all this.” “I think you will. In fact, I may never have been able to stop you from remembering, or at least from passing on what you have learned. Hmm. That’s irksome.” “Please explain?” “The distributed device within your brain and central nervous system, which I have, annoyingly, only recently become aware of, will have recorded its own memories of this encounter and would be able to transmit them to your own biological brain. I strongly suspect it has already transmitted our conversation so far… else where. Perhaps to the drone you arrived with and the ship you arrived on. That is very unusual. Unique, even. Also, most irritating.” “What are you talking about? Do you mean a neural lace?” “Within a sufficiently wide definition, yes. It is certainly some thing similar.” “Well, you’re wrong. I don’t have a neural lace.” “I think you do.” “And I know I don’t.” “I beg to differ, as those who are right have always begged to differ from those who are wrong but refuse to admit it.” “Look, I would know if…” She heard her voice trail off, her jaw going slack as the relevant string relaxed, leaving her speechless. |
| Technovelgy from Surface Detail,
by Iain M Banks. Published by Orbit in 2010 Additional resources -
|
Here's another excerpt:
“Gentlemen, please,” Veppers said calmly, before Jasken could reply. He looked at the doctor. “As simply as you can, Sulbazghi, for the non-technically minded; what the hell is this thing?”
“It’s a neural lace,” the doctor said, sounding exhausted.
“A neural lace,” Veppers repeated.He’d heard of these things. They were the sort of device that highly advanced aliens who’d started out squidgy and biochemical – as squidgy and biochemical as Sichultians, for example – and who had not wanted to upload themselves into nirvana or oblivion or wherever, used when they wanted to interface with machine minds or record their thoughts, or even when they wanted to save their souls, their mind-states.
Veppers looked at Sulbazghi. “Are you saying,” he said slowly, “that the girl had a neural lace in her head?”
And another excerpt:
She’d been offered another neural lace, before she’d been woken up in this new body. She’d said no, and was still unsure why she’d made that choice. Anyway, one could be... installed later...
“It was found in the ashes of one of my staff,” Veppers told Huen, knuckles on her desk, arms spread, leaning over her. “And my extremely able techs reckon it’s one of yours, so my next question is, what the fuck is the Culture doing putting illegal espionage equipment into the heads of my people? You are not supposed to spy on us, remember?”
“Haven’t the foggiest idea what it was doing there,” Huen said, handing the lace to the outstretched manipule field of the drone, which teased it out to its maximum extent. The remains of the lace took on the rough shape of a brain. Veppers caught a glimpse and found the sight oddly unsettling. He slammed one palm on Huen’s desk.
Compare to the implanted transceiver cap from Blood on the Sun (1942) by Hal K. Wells, the necap from The Human Blend (2010) by Alan Dean Foster and Cranial Amplified Programming from Killing Titan (2015) by Greg Bear.
Whatever it was, it looked like a small bunch of very fine wires, their colour a sort of dull matt silver with a hint of blue. Scrunch it up, he thought, and you’d have something like a pebble; something so small you could probably swallow it...
Only after she’d done it did Lededje realise she’d put one hand to the back of her head as soon as Sensia had mentioned a lace. Her fingertips moved through the soft, short fair hair covering her scalp, tracing the contours of her own skull.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Surface Detail
More Ideas
and Technology by Iain M Banks
Tech news articles related to Surface Detail
Tech news articles related to works by Iain M Banks
Neural Lace-related
news articles:
- NEO Brain Computer Interface (BCI)
| Health Kiosk Has No Human Doctor |
| NEO Brain Computer Interface (BCI) |
| MIT Computerized Bionic Leg Is Part Of The User |
| Bone-Building Drug Evenity Approved |
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'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
