Augmentations have been existing for thousands of years, but this capacity is on the verge of producing leapfrogging impacts
Technology, per se, is a generic augmenting principle:
To give an idea, let’s mention:
-primitive shoes, eskimo «glasses» to see in super-shining environments, primitive time-keepers , scouts, ships’ crows nests, astrolabs,
-but also more modern tools such as clocks, microscopes and telescopes, glasses, efficient transport means and communication infrastructures, etc.
Then why this noise about technological augmentations, today ? The reason is that recent technological breakthroughs, in particular in the ICT domain, simply gave this already existing propensity new possibilities and levels of performance
This extensions of perceptive and actuation means, individual or collective, fits a series of heavy trends concerning, among others:
-computing power increase,
-massive image manipulation,
-hyper-connetivity,
-crowd-sourcing and big data
-automated or assisted monitoring with learning capabilities,
-microtechnologies allowing to detect and react in smaller, faster, lighter ways than ever before,
-assisted perception in sounds and visual patterns, with increased capacity in terms of numbers, speed, accuracy, links, etc.
-the Augmented Man (device- or bio-, genetically-supported augmentation of human capabilities)
