Column: By gone "Hey! days"
Technology: The Genotypewriter
By: Dr. Gould
The device we’ll be analyzing today on our blasts and aghasts from the past of our bygone "hey" days is the innocent piece of old tech, The GenoTypewriter Appliance. It was a "cute" geno combo appliance from it’s year in 2070, created by two crack pot designitists Lia Martinez and William Jennings. The designitists paid special attention to a nostalgia hardware utilizing ancient rotary technology for the selector and a patented lever system to drive digital motors and vacuum tube splicers. So lets take a look back intoto the past first though to see what got us where we and the Genotypewriter brought us.
In the year 2020 - Designer bacteria first appeared in yogurt. The premium yogurt would change flavors as you were eating it. So you may start out with the flavor of banana, but before you knew it you would be tasting warm pancakes, some blueberries and eventually, chocolate chip cookies. All because of a designer bacterium. The public was apprehensive at first, but eventually the idea of eating something with genetically flavorified bacteria made sense. The yogurt technology became one of the best-selling food products in history.
By 2030 - The people were ready for more, and big pet companies responded. Geneticists had been working furiously on the next big thing with designer pets. In 2030, Purino U-Dog first released a few to the high-profile Chinese elite. Before you knew it, there were people walking around with fashionably colored animals -- some had pink fur, clear fur, the beginning of chameleon fur dogs, cats and fish. Pets were branded more than ever and it didn’t matter if you had a pug or a poodle, it mattered what features your dog had which was controlled by your dog brand. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it at the time. After all, humans had been breeding dogs to suit their purpose for hundreds of years.
By 2040 - The latest and greatest feature for dogs and cats was modified vocal cords. This allowed them to imitate humans and truly "speak." It was fun, but the truth was that they couldn’t recite much better than a horse parrot. Domesticated animals were given the ability to "speak in our language" only in that they could imitate and practice with the human vocal range. Having mastered manipulating the genomes of the most accessible of animals, the biotech field moved on to the rest of the animal kingdom. There were a few ambitious scientists who made it their mission to translate the histories of great apes by breeding monkeys with human vocal chords.
By 2045 - After people realized their beloved pets really had nothing intelligent to say, they were re-modified with the vocalizations of the singers of their choice Pavarotti or Lady Gaga (now 65 years old yet looking a swinging early 20s). No one had heard the sounds of a real dog bark for years.
By 2050 - Biotronics emerges as a real science. The programming of parts and the efficiency of engineering is rooted in the life sciences. Biotronics is essentially the study and creation of products with personality: you push a button it and it coos, you purr and it turns on. Food appliances included the fresh directory which was a mini farm where you’d have all the convenience of the grocery store produce grown at a heightened rate and compact on your counter top. Better Homes and Gardens commented on the product: "Sustainable, time saver finally a device that gets me! totes! omg! no sloppy shopping!" the answer to shopping and farming.
By 2070, the Zojiruchi Whatever Plus Whatever Co. (formerly the Zojirushi Food Machine Co.) became the biggest manufacturer of BioZuchi miniature kiosks. Unlike the Syntheseez 5000s (made by Dyson, using revolutionary vacuum technology to speed up the synthesizing process), the BioZuchi’s were more compact and affordable, bringing mechanized genetic synthesis to the public.You could synthesize at home! Imagine that. Every home had a BioZuchi -- dad could ride to work in a giraffotamus, mom could make an asparagusaurus dinner, and kids could swim in a tub with a great white shark + cotton ball hybrid (it can’t really hurt you with puffy cotton teeth). All the more aggressive to cuddle you with!
So, this is when GenoTypewriter comes into play. These two designitists come up to the field and use a much cheaper primordial goo technology than Zojiruchi, Dyson or any other big boutique shop. And the way they solve their 3d bio synthesis printer with old 1930s typewriter technology changes everything. So not only are they green but they can produce a device for the same cost as a biodegrade cell phone. Long story short lets give their product a real review:
Reviewing of the GenoTypewriter (30+ years later): First of all, using reclaimed antiques kept their cost down and gave them a unique edge, to the seamless soft gray things Zojiruchi and Dyson were making at the time. The GenoTypewriter also used a wood panel and latex glow display that brought back that "natural look." That natural look is key because when combining two things to make whatever type of companion you'd like the most difficult thing is pulling it out of some small chamber and finding it is quite as lifeless as it looked on screen. Yet, with this model the little guys had personality and the receipts you get with each one actually encouraged us to be more The big change was a central printer hub where people could go pickup their pups/bio thingies. This was huge! It is such a novel idea back to the idea of grocery stores and shopping carts, except these pups were perfectly behaved after you picked them up!
In 2090, the world starts evaluating the mess that they had created. No species alive was in its purest form: Pure Form as we see had been regarded simply as a lack of progress, and things had gotten out of control. The half-man, half-lettuce American President put forward regulations that for the first time in decades, restricted consumer access to genetic hacking.
By 2105, things had began to turn around. The sound of doggie barks, surprisingly unpleasing in its naturalness, were being heard again in the suburbs. However, remnants of the old biosynthesis technology still remained. Many hacked products stuck around in seedier areas of the city. "I thought this was illegal," your friends exclaim, as a caramel-flavored-polar-bear-whatsit enters the room to serve your dinner party ice cream. "It is," you reply, "you only need to know where to look."
In 2098, the people of Earth started to rebuild. Research teams were tasked to find Pure Specie DNA, so that the world could be repopulated and return to the way it was. Biosynthesis was made completely illegal worldwide.