[last updated 4-25-11]
[what is this?]

2011:

1. "Smallest. Transistor. Ever?"
   
   (found by friend Evan Burke)

2010:

1. "Look out, your medicine is watching you"
   "The biotech start-up's ingestible chips are activated by stomach acid and send information to a small patch worn on the patient's skin, which can transmit data to a smartphone or send it over the Internet to a doctor."
2. "Smart Pill Sends Message When Medication is Swallowed" (found by reader & friend Mikhail Koulikov)
   "The University of Florida News that researchers at the University have invented a smart pill that can alert a patient’s physician or family member/caregiver when the patient has taken a medication. The pill could also alert the scientist who is working with the patient in a clinical drug trial so he knows that the patient is following the 'rules' of the trial."
3. "Scientists Take Quantum Steps Toward Teleportation"
   A fun story from NPR about advances in quantum teleportation and computing.

2009:

1. "Scientists 'grow' meat in laboratory"
   This isn't strictly squip-related but it IS disturbing and mind-blowing.
2. 
   SINGLE MOLECULE PHOTOGRAPHED
   
   
3. 
   Monkey grabs food using its brain and a mechanical arm (found by lj user thefloorismagma)
4. MAN POSTS TWITTER MESSAGES USING ONLY HIS MIND
5. BRAIN WAVES MOVE WHEELCHAIR
6. "The Future Is Now? Pretty Soon, at Least" Great primer about Ray Kurzweil and the Singularity, "that revolutionary transition when humans and/or machines start evolving into immortal beings with ever-improving software."
   
   Kurzweil goes by the assumption that human intelligence doubles every year to predict that "by the 2020s we’ll be adding computers to our brains and building machines as smart as ourselves."
   
   (I was actually going to say the squip would be here by 2015, but I amended it to 2020 based on Kurzweil, who's really accurate: he said a computer would be a human at chess in 1998; Deep Blue happened in 1997.)
7. A more detailed article about how Kurzweil is preparing to live forever.
8. If you dig that (the living forever stuff), HERE is Aubrey de Grey --
   
   
   
   -- officially the coolest-looking scientist since Galileo. He has identified seven simple problems that we can fix to make ourselves immortal.
9. "Drugs, Body Modifications May Create Second Enlightenment" (Among other things, this article features a woman who had a magnet implanted in her finger and can now sense electricity in live phone cords.)
10. VIRUS-BASED BATTERIES
11. DNA-BASED COMPUTERS
12. Robot discovers knowledge independent of creators...
13. "Study takes steps toward easing bad memories..."
14. Ratbot
    

Explanation
What is this? Well, since Be More Chill came out in 2004, we've come a lot closer to having a squip.

In addition to breakthroughs in quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and materials science, people around the world have accepted a creepy sort of familiarity with computers (I'm thinking Google Street, the read-all-your-email US anti-terrorism act, Facebook) that make for a much richer incubation climate for squips.

Ask me? Mark it: by 2020 there will be commercially available implantable/ingestable/wearable computers that give out social advice directly into your brain.

On this page, we are collecting evidence as it appears.

Note: this is an active process! If you see evidence of the squip developing, please email me about it.

© Ned Vizzini 2000-2012