cyberpunk2020.de

I stumbled upon this story, which I found esp. interesting. The point of the story is what happens if you mesh cyberware with a social network. Think Facebook: You can see what your friends do, which new friends they have, what they read, what they are fan of, what they think. You learn a lot about them, even stuff they wouldn’t told you if met personally or stimply stuff you would have never dared to ask. Like that the new girlfriend is a better kisser then the old one.

Or photos. Do these people realise that someday they will have to apply for a job? Yes, we like your degree, but don’t employ people so drunk they show their private parts on parties, thank you very much.

Twitter is often worse. But a computer could probably learn more about you by analysing the banalties you twittered then by accessing the NSA databases.

The next step (which Facebook is slow to adapt, but others are allready using) is adding the use of a mobile device. You can twitter from your mobile phone, and Facebook can be accessed with the iphone. So add to your Facebook profile: Location (the new Iphone has GPS), Pictures (every mobile device has a camera) and commenting on the go. The pressure to comment will rise: Imagine a 16 year old from Manhattan. His Facebook tells us he’s in Kansas. No, not even in Kansas City, but is some 2-dog town. How humiliation for our fashionable adolescent. He MUST tell his friends how much he hates being there and that is only because his Grandmas 70th Birthday and stuff.

Next step: Cyberware. Add Emotions (detected by the amount of hormones in the blood and the blood pressure). Effortless commenting. Photos taken with the eye, Status of your friends always available. Feeling connected to them. Tom feels fear? Mary has an orgasm? You’ll know as soon as they do. And all for 400 eb.

Cyberware: Social Network Plugin. HC 0.5 Requires a Basic Neuro Processor. Works well with Cybereye, Cyberear, Headup Display, Phonesplice, portable Ebook and or Cybermodem of most brands.

Since I’m by far to lazy to create some meaningful posts, today you’ll get just a few (AMAZING!!!) links.

• Killjoy Cooking With the Dungeons & Dragons Crowd
  It ain’t funny, its so true.
• Denial-of-coffee attacks
  Cyberpunk NOW can make you laugh yourself to death.It used to be a joke from the netrunner i played. “Behave, Solo, or I hack your coffeemaker and you’ll reduced to drink tea!” But then, in those times a coffeemaker was 15 € and nothing fancy at all.
• Melee-weapons: Who would think they advance in the age of guns? William Gibson talked about this one, the Wasp, in his blog. Look at it, its crazy.

PS: Sorry for yesterdays post. It was so bad I deleted it.

Cory Doctorow has put his new book, “Little Brother” online. He’s so good I had to add him to my list of Cyberpunk writers (see sidebar).

It’s a

young adult novel about hacker kids who use technology to reclaim the Bill of Rights from the DHS after a terrorist attack on San Francisco.

Also to be found on the website:

• Creative Commons licensed downloads of the whole book
• An easy way to donate copies of the book to school classrooms
• Links to buy the book from various etailers (and an offer to get a signed, inscribed copy shipped direct to you by Borderlands Books in San Francisco)
• A place to put your remixes of the book

This post is in German. If you can read German,

please choose the German version of this blog.