Human Area Networks
There's a lot that could be said about emerging products like RedTacton:
Using a new super-sensitive photonic electric field sensor, RedTacton can achieve duplex communication over the human body at a maximum speed of 10 Mbps.
Goodbye radio waves. This device enables network communication at the most intimate physical level, sending data across the surface of the skin. It can be used to connect to all kinds of devices to exchange information and opens up unprecedented potentials for behavioural surveillance.
I'm not even going to discuss the slippery slope of privacy and security implications... In fact, my main thoughts about this kind of ubiquitous computing are mostly related to the economic inequalities that determine the distribution of such technology. The enabling potentials of human area networking are enough to blow most people's minds. Like never before in human history, the 'haves' been granted access to technology with the potential to propel them so much further ahead than the 'have-nots'. Will we start to see a new kind of economic segregation emerge, based on cybernetic augmentation?