This is about implants enhancing your abilities in any way beyond what you are able to do now. I’m not talking about medical implants to help you do things you couldn’t do well or not at all before due to a medical or genetic condition.

First of all I have to admit that I would not really be comfortable having surgery to get something implanted into my body. Especially with the prospect of not being able to use it for a long time. Imagine having fiddeled around in your body every two years to exchange your devices, because greater and better hardware is available or even worse your stuff is not compatible with external interfaces anymore. This is something I would carefully way against the actual usefulness of a device itself. Meaning the latest social sharing gadget will likely not end up under my skin.

In general I only would put myself on the table if a device will be supported and usable in the longterm, obviously only if it adds extraordinary functionality. One way to solve this problem of being on the bleeding edge might be to borrow from a rather old idea: sockets. Light bulbs use them, computer processors use them. Why not add implants to that list? Just put a standardized socket in you (this still sounds strange) and plug-in the latest and greatest whenever you feel about it or need to. Some might opt for a below-the-skin (subcutaneous) plug which is not visible on the outside for beauty reasons. This way still a small cut into the skin would be required for changes, but this can be done at home.

So far so good, but thinking about it a little longer: where in your skinny body (I believe we will all have ideal body shape in the future, how generous of me) is actually the space to put new hardware? Sure it will depend on the actual functionality. The brain is likely to be off limits for most here, too much could go wrong. Close to the heart might not be that good of an idea either, albeit we already broadly utilize pacemakers and the like. Which leaves us with extremities and abdomen.

A rule of thumb might be that the smaller a device will get, the more likely it will end up in and all over the body of more and more people. And looking at the progression in microchips we might just start getting there (until we hit that low nanometer barrier with silicon, but we’ll figure something out). Simpler procedures and accommodating laws will do their part for mass market adoption.

Regarding the small hardware issue we might see some form of sensors appear way earlier than actual processing, enhancer-devices. Those feelers could be put anywhere and report if you are about to touch something, if you are standing or walking or which way your head is looking. These might help a long way in improving augmented reality applications. Looks like implants are not that far out anymore.