SYNC - Interview with Jessica Jade

[SYNC]

DENVER, COLORADO - We publish the transcript of a part of the interview between SYNC reporter Jack Sinclair and the Wisp Innovations spokeswoman Jessica Jade that took place in the auditorium of Mark Levy University of Denver on 17th of May, 823 A.S. The interview was followed by questions from the audience and concerned the subject of Wisp's new expansion into the field of neurobiology drugs.

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Sinclair: Ms Jade, I would like to now ask about the 'new nanodrug', information on which you unveiled earlier this year. I'm sure a lot of us here are eager to hear more about the progress on that.

Jade: The project, which is currently under the codename Vergil, has almost been completed. Our research teams are now working day and night to add finishing touches to this technology, which are mostly relating to security of this product. It is also a challenge for us, considering it is the first of our products which targets such a large user base. We want to make it as versatile as possible and as useful as possible.

S: How are you planning to achieve that?

J: Almost the entirety of high-level software running Vergil is based on open-source technologies. Some might think that source code that's open to everyone is a security vulnerability, but it's exactly the opposite -- thousands of people every day review and improve it, eliminating errors much faster than a corporate development team. However, due to some security concerns we are forced to keep the underlying neural interfacing technology away from the public eye.

S: Please give us more details on how this drug will work. I guess-- I mean, for me personally, anything relating to neural implants brings thoughts of painful surgeries on the operation table. Is that going to be the case?

J: Not in the slightest. In fact, we have managed to devise possibly the most innovative and painless method of injection possible. The entire drug is composed of two parts. The first one is a tiny quantum coherence chip we call core, which just simply needs to be on your person. That chip can be built into your jewellery, a watch or -- if you want -- surgically inserted under your skin. The other is a nanofluid comprised of billions of nanomachines -- called nodes -- which you can simply drink. Those nodes will find their way into your synapses, where they can intercept or emit a neural signal -- that's the 'neural interfacing' part -- and communicate it to the core. This creates a simple network which is capable of very robust communications.

S: How robust? What are the capabilities of such a system?

J: Simply, endless. The team of Ageira software engineers that are cooperating with us on this project have devised a practical programming interface which will allow any software developer with enough experience easily create applications for Vergil.

S: Can you give us some examples?

J: Well, in the field of medicine -- which was the original reason this project was started, before we realised the possibilities with it -- it can be used to manage various body functions. For people with certain kinds of hormonal diseases, such as diabetes, it can regulate hormone production. It can also be paired with other hardware to automatically inject the patient with other drugs - anti-depressants, painkillers, Stabiline or even supplement vitamins. Other uses can include cerebral imaging, communication and entertainment. We hope to make the Neural Net truly neural.

S: And what about the security of this drug? Surely if I get a virus into my console, the damage is much less severe if I got a virus into my brain.

J: First of all, you have to always exercise extreme caution when you're downloading data from other people -- but that's security 101. We have included several important security precautions. One of which provides the user with a 'master override' of sorts which can reboot or even remove the entire node system from your body in case something goes wrong or you're just simply unhappy with the product. Additionally, there will be a number of sub-consciousness patterns included that will fire in the most extreme of cases. That is the last part that is stopping us from releasing a fully complete product.

S: Wow. I do certainly hope that this will be another technological breakthrough, maybe something on the scale of the docking rings and trade lanes.

J: [laugh] I'm not sure we can attribute ourselves that much impact on the civilization.

S: I'm sure it will be close. Okay. We will now take questions from the audience, please step to the microphones or pass your index cards to the staff... ∎

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