Posted 5/1/2008

BRAIN OF THE FUTURE

Mary Lou was in a stew.

Arthur, the big engineering genius, had broken the dishwasher again.

It wasn't as if he hadn't been warned. Despite being a graduate of MIT and all that, Arthur was always trying to wedge too-big things into too-little spaces.

And he had been scolded many times for letting knives slip through the basket to land on the rotating blades.

Last Saturday afternoon, Arthur really messed up while Mary Lou was out shopping. Now the rotating blades ... don't.

"Men in general, and engineers in particular, are too stupid to handle dishwashers!" Mary Lou steamed internally.

If he had really known how mad she was, Arthur would have fled for his life. But most men are too obtuse to know how their wives are really feeling.

But take heart, Arthurs of the world. Help is on the way.

Berlin's Max Planck Institute is testing the first stage of a brain scanner which can alert you to what your wife is going to do before she actually does it.

With a nifty brain scanner built into his new electronic eyewear, Arthur will be able to tell what Mary Lou is going to do even before she decides to do it. He will be able to run out of the house before she empties full clip into him.

Of course, this is early times with the experiments, but a combination of nanotechnology and improvements in brain scanning technology is clearly on the way.

And that's not all. Omron of Japan is working on a robot which will be able to detect the emotions behind thirty different facial expressions, eye movements and lip contours. Their first prototype can read thirty different people in less than a second.

Think how well off Arthur will be in the future. In less than a second he will be able to read the emotions of Mary Lou, the kids and a whole housefull of guests.

Why, these technologies might put a considerable dent in the divorce rate. (The latest statistics show that 50 percent of all women are unmarried – mostly because men are too exasperating.)

Hang on a few more years, Arthur, and you'll have it made in the shade. You'll be able to read Mary Lou like a children's book.

Just stay away from the dishwasher.

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