Epsilon_Twilight

I've been occupied with exams and writing other novels today, so instead of a chapter, I decided to make this short explanation of interfaces. It's totally optional so feel free to skip it if you want.

Contrary to popular belief, interfaces – especially those of ‘students’ – are not computers. Well, computers in the sense of Personal Computers, because they are indeed machines with computational power. To describe it in simple terms, interfaces – or neuronal interfaces as they are formally called – are glorified routers.

The interface is quite literally an interface. Both in the sense that it acts as a proxy between the machine and the human brain, but also between the local machine and the physical, external machine that performs most of the computing. Indeed, interfaces are but an elevated form of cloud computing. Whilst the interface has some innate processing power equivalent to a first-generation smartphone, most of the processes take place elsewhere.

I’ll address questions one by one.

Isn’t a first-generation smartphone too low even by modern standards? It may seem so, but interfaces are very, very small. And they are built to even sustain the hardships of space. With that I mean stray cosmic rays that are likely to fry most diminutive transistors. Space travel took a toll for this exact reason, even though on Earth computers and transistors were getting smaller, the same couldn’t be said for those in space. Once you reach a certain threshold, transistors are so small that they get affected by even photons. Which, least to say, it's absurd.

For interfaces to work in space and not result in faulty information that would have been directly transmitted to the brain of a person, they needed to be as robust as possible. This meant putting a limitation on the size of its transistors, and the portability of the device already impeded the possibility of quantum computing.

The ingenuity of such devices comes from the strict limitations that they had to endure. Not only the physical ones but also those of ethical origins.

As far as neuronal interfaces go, this one is as non-intrusive as it gets. So much so that you could pull one out of a person and they would only feel a mild discomfort and headache. That’s obviating the fact that they would have exposed neurons, though.

Size, you say? It depends on the type of interface of course. But most tend to not be longer than a short strand of hair and vaguely thrice as wide. At the end of the day, it’s an antenna. And before you ask, they are installed in the eyes. So, technically there are two, but for spending reasons, only one is the computer and the other one is a slave.

What play has cloud computing in all of this? Dear, everything. Interfaces are not cyberpunk ocular enhancements nor backdoors to the brain, but more like an ethernet port that has a little integrated screen that allows you to connect to cloud services. 

Also no, it’s not augmented reality. Whilst not hijacking, the interface interprets the electric pulses the eyes send to the brain in both directions. This allows the interface to know your thoughts… No, it’s not mind-reading. You need to be very specific with your thoughts as the interface isn’t that sophisticated. That’s the reason why student interfaces require diegetic finger gestures to navigate through them.

I already told you how the interface detects this, it reads the incoming and outcoming pulses of the brain. This is what also allows the interface to modify what you see in the shape of a physical HUD. No holograms are needed, that’s literally the brain interpreting a modified signal from the eyes.

Good question. Yes, the interfaces have theoretical infinite processing power as all the actual processes are being handled elsewhere. You could say the upper limit is on the bandwidth, but they managed to solve that. And don’t get me started on their bandwidth. They made society orbit around cloud computing and bandwidth, turning the computational power of their routers into a currency.

You know why we don’t do it. Don’t put that face on.

And why would you even want an interface? It wouldn’t work here. They work in IPv16 or something like that, at that point there’s no compatibility even if you tried to ping another network.

I am speaking to you like a child because you literally have no idea of computers, only about flesh and synapses.

…Yes, I am aware this combines both.

That’s it! No more otherworldly knowledge for you! No scram, I have a lot of work to do.