Hughes quoted on cell-phone implants

IEET Executive Director James Hugheswas among the experts quoted on Michael Kruse’s article for the St. Petersburg Times In-your-face interface:

“We’re moving inside” the body with cell phones, said James Hughes, a bioethicist and sociologist at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and author of Citizen Cyborg. “My opinion is it is realistic. But for at least a couple of decades, I don’t think it’s going to be terribly attractive to open up our heads.”

Longtime mobile industry analyst Bob Egan agrees. “I don’t think the mainstream population is ready to make that leap,” said Egan, with Emerging Technologies in Needham, Mass.

Other well-known experts were quoted, from the Washington Post’s Joel Garreau to Kevin Warwick, but perhaps the most representative voice came from the youngest person interviewed…

Eddie Morrell is 20 and works at one of the two Cingular kiosks in St. Petersburg’s Tyrone Square Mall. He said he sometimes falls asleep with the thing still on his ear.

“Once you start,” he said, “you don’t go back.”

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