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"Generally, the human race avoids doing anything radical until forced into it."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Dental Switchboard | ||
| A control device tied in with teeth and nerve endings. |
This device provides a hands-free way to control other devices; in this case, a set of body modifications. In the novel, Gully Foyle seeks revenge on those who abandoned him in space; he has his entire body rewired for greater strength and speed.
| He pressed hard with his tongue against his right upper first molar. The operation that had transformed half his body into an electronic machine, had located the control switchboard in his teeth. Foyle pressed a tooth with his tongue and the peripheral cells of his retina were excited into emitting a soft light. He looked down two pale beams at the corpse of a man... |
| From The Stars My Destination,
by Alfred Bester. Published by Berkley in 1956 Additional resources -
|
I can't find this as an assistive device for people who are unable to use ordinary controllers (like people with high spinal injuries); I wonder if it is worth exploring. An interesting use of computers as an assistive device is found in this article Spinal Cord Injury and how to live with it. It describes a mouse-substitute that can be operated with lips and tongue alone. Left and right mouse clicks are done by sipping from or puffing into the "hollow joystick."
It would be handy for athletes; here's a bit more:
Foyle touched his tongue to the switchboard wired into the nerve endings of his teeth. He accelerated...
He backed a step and pressed his tongue against his upper incisors. Neural circuits buzzed and every sense and response in his body was accelerated by a factor of five.
Compare to the Ullran enunciator from Uller Uprising (1952) by H. Beam Piper.
Every nerve plexus had been rewired, microscopic transistors and transformers had been buried in muscle and bone...
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Stars My Destination
More Ideas
and Technology by Alfred Bester
Tech news articles related to The Stars My Destination
Tech news articles related to works by Alfred Bester
Dental Switchboard-related
news articles:
- Tongue Controller Uses Tongue Magnets
- Tongue Drive System Validated In Clinical Trial
- iLickit App Reveals iPhone Tongue Interface
- Intraoral Tongue Drive System
- Tongue Mouse Created By Valve Engineer
| MIT Headset Lets You Communicate Without Speaking |
| Tongue Mouse Created By Valve Engineer |
| Skinput Uses Your Skin As An Input Device |
| AcceleGlove Open-Source Data Glove |
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Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
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''... major cities of Earth have free electrical power conveniently processed from their own noise.'
'The appearance was enough like a giant witch's broom to justify the nickname.'
'A vast circle of scarlet stars came up into the greenish desert dusk.'
'He had constructed an organ, a brain, of metal, entirely inorganic and lifeless...'
'I shall never forget the sight... when the yellow gleam of the precious metal appeared under the star dust.'
Oh, and now I suppose someone will develop the robotic porch pirate.
'This thing will start at one end of ...a house and build it complete to the other end, following drawings only.'
