Intel wants to plug a smartphone into your brain

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Show off a new gadget to your friends or family and inevitably one person in the group will declare, "Soon they'll just plug these things directly into your brain!" And everyone will laugh, as if they've never heard that joke before.

It's no joke.

An Intel-commissioned white paper released Wednesday on the future of mobile technology concludes that connected devices interfacing with the human brain is an inevitability.

Here's how the paper's authors, from consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, put it: "As convergence continues across device types, functions, and capabilities, the melding of mobile technologies directly into the human body becomes the logical next step."

They add: "By harnessing the processing power and capabilities of mobile devices, for example, our biological brain will be augmented exponentially by a digital counterpart."

Don't expect to plug your iPhone directly into your cranium in the next few years. There's a few remaining steps on the path toward turning us all into cyborgs.

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/03/technology/smartphone-in-your-brain/index.htm