New Orleans. -- Sherri Wigdore, who works for Intelligent Electronics, has a dog with a computer chip in her neck. The dog's name is Zena. Sherri's dog Zena is a big dog, of the kind known as Bouvier de Flandres, and if that wasn't enough, nobody can remove the chip from Zena's neck because it's been injected there by a vet. A veterinarian, that is, not an ex-soldier.
If Zena is lost somewhere like on a ski slope, let's say, whoever finds her can take her to an office where they scan her neck and retrieve all her vital data, like "This is Zena, Sherri's dog, Internet address, azenol.com." There is a central data bank somewhere that has all the data contained on all the computer chips in the necks of all the dogs in America. When Zena is scanned, this data bank fires down the info.
Sherri told me this while showing me the latest computer techne on the floor of the New Orleans Superdome. A computer named Bob can record your voice and transcribe your words on the screen. At first, it's a bit unsteady. You say, "Sherri's dog Zena . . . " and it writes, "sheedozina," which is the Russian translation.
Apparently, it takes a while for Bob to learn your accent and vocabulary. You know how it is. But then Bob not only learns how you talk and how you say it, it anticipates what you have to say. Eventually, it interrupts you because it knows how you say
it better than you're about to say it. After about a week, you don't need to talk at all: Bob does all your talking and it writes down what it says for you.
But get this: After another week you can have a chip put in your neck that allows Bob to read your mind wherever you are, even on a ski slope trying to deal with a lost dog. Bob will put your neck chip in touch with Zena's neck chip and the two chips will lead you to the vet. Give the system a few weeks and nobody will ever be lost again. And to be a chip in somebody's neck will be the highest compliment.
Andrei Codrescu teaches English at Louisiana State University.