The ‘i’ Generation
Written by Jason Lasky
“Count back from ten,” is the last thing I remember the dentist saying to me before the operation began. When I got to “seven” I suddenly remembered my very first visit to the dentist, and I remember cringing because the music in the waiting room was so awful. There I was, a tiny sea urchin, barely aware of the world around me, and I was being subjected to auditory torture the likes of which those Guantanamo Bay inmates knew nothing about. My parents had told me not to fear anything about what the dentist might do to my mouth, but here I was less concerned about the happenings of my teeth as I was about the delicacy of my eardrums. Flashing forward all these years, it is interesting how I’ve come to appreciate dental innovation almost as much as the evolution of music. We have been living in the “I” generation, steeped in the iron grip of personalized power over music, continuing to accept the technological innovations of the most high-tech of companies. And so my visit today to my dentist in Shanghai, this second day of January, 2016, is all about my taking that next inevitable step along the path of individual control: The iTooth.
As we all know, the Apple Company, one of the great technological innovators of the 21st century, has had solid performance throughout the brightest and darkest of days. The death of their leader, Steve Jobs, in 2011, left the world with a huge amount of uncertainty regarding the future of this innovative organization. Luckily, though, Mr. Tim Cook, successor of Mr. Jobs and the man who took the reins and championed the continued evolution of technological interactivity, recently gave us such superior models of well-known hand-held products as the iPhone X, the iPad 7, and the gift that kept on giving throughout the cold, winter months: the iVibrator. Cook announced on Thanksgiving day the newest additions to the Apple family, and the response has been tremendous! Not to be outdone, but rather as a point of confluence, Apple also announced their joint venture with several insurance companies that would cover the somewhat costly surgery. Throngs of people have been showing up to insurance companies around the world demanding for registration forms for iLife.
The movement from the bulky and cumbersome gramophone, to the portable radio and cassette player, to the iPod Nano, and now to this miniscule marvel over the last century and a half has been an exponentially increasing process. What we have before us now, though, is a much more secure way of appreciating our music as we make our ways around town, as it is true that pickpockets do not stand a chance of ripping off unsuspecting passers-by. As many people will attest, they often go about their days with songs playing in their heads anyway, humming along as they so often do from place to place. With the music now occupying the sinus cavities completely, it will surely be less of a hum and more a full-on concert within peoples’ entire faces. Having had my seven-year-old iPod taken off my person just a few days ago, I decided that it was time to take the next step along with the current flock of consuming masses and make an investment that will bring an immediate return.
The operation is akin to having a tooth removed, but in this case the tooth that is chosen has to be the strongest in the mouth. Also, the nerve endings that the miniscule microchip hooks into have to be disease free in order to allow for the perfect neural connection. The way the iTooth functions is startling, as it sounds like something straight out of some science fiction story. After the natural tooth has been extracted, the exposed nerve endings are placed into a kind of bridge (think of a memory card reader for your digital camera) that connects to the iTooth. Then, the iTooth is cemented into the jawbone. A simple computer diagnostic is run to ensure that the iTooth and the iCloud are in sync with one another. Once the connection is established, it’s then really up to whatever thought enters your mind since the iTooth is connected to your neural pathways. If this sounds like those stories about a friend you know who got braces put in his mouth and then picked up alien signals from outer space that only he could hear, you are not far off. The difference, though, is that you are fully in control of what you are hearing inside your head.
Unfortunately, this will not be something that everyone will either be able to afford or physically be capable of possessing, so it will be interesting to see what sort of ancillary effects the iTooth will have on consumers who do not brush between meals. Already, though, a handful of celebrities are sporting the marvelous creation, and some American rap artists are even having their iTooth modified in the same way that grills began to be in the 1990s. It will be equally exciting to see what kind of niche markets develop for the more fashionably loud who walk among us.
I woke up about half an hour later with quite a bit of pain in the back, left, lower side of my jaw, but that was to be expected. Some pain medicine and ice were brought. I looked over and found a computer screen next to me, and I was asked to sign into my iTunes account. I was then asked to think of a song, and I immediately thought of Styx’s Come Sail Away. In an instant, I heard the song playing at a low volume and as I next thought to ask how to increase the volume it did so by itself! The moment I had any thought of a song it would begin playing, and so it was rather disorienting at first. The dentist then spent the next half hour or so talking to me about how to properly control the device, and pretty soon it felt as though it had always been a part of me. As I made my way home on the subway, I played The Buggles’s Video Killed the Radio Star several times, and I wondered what next eventual step may be in store for us just a little while from now and if the masses would eat it up as they had the iTooth, so to speak. I also wondered what was playing in everyone else’s heads.
Want to see more and experience more, please visit: http://www.beingfunchina.com/magazine/the-getgo-vol-15/