Copyright Ian Pearson, BT Futurologist

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The future of breast implants

Millions of women have breast implants. They used to be based mainly on silicone until there was a health scare and they moved over to using bags of saline solution. More recently, the health scares seem to have gone away, and silicone is starting a comeback.

Silicone sounds a bit like silicon, which of course is used in many electronic chips. That’s because silicone gel is based on silicon. In fact, it is possible to make some electronic circuits based on silicone, though they are not well suited to heavy computing tasks. Other kinds of plastic can even be used to make organic displays (using organic LEDs). So knowing this as an engineer, it is now very hard for me to think of breast implants as purely decorative. I just can’t help feeling that if a woman is going to have something implanted permanently, it might as well do something useful.

So why not still use a combination of silicone and other plastics in the implant, but do something useful with them? One implant could house a range of gadgetry such as an MP3 player and the other store the woman’s entire music collection – we call this concept mammary memory! God provides her with two beautifully designed control knobs to select the track and adjust the volume. A Bluetooth link to a wireless headset avoid any need for messy wires. And a special bra could inductively charge them up. A mobile phone and PDA could be implanted too, also based on plastic. Vibration based alerts and appointment alarams might feel very pleasant, and would undoubtedly be used for sexual purposes on occasion, perhaps under remote control by her lover. A cute organic display panel could blend invisibly into the flesh most of the time and just become visible when selecting a track, dialling a friend, or using it for a video call. The body adornment possibilities of displays built into breasts probably aren’t too compelling, I much prefer the natural effect, but some women might select a kaleidoscopic effect, or tailor their cleavage image to accessorise their clothes. Or if she has had a really hard night on the town, they might simply show ‘this way up’.

And of course, there are now a wide range of medical monitors in use. If a woman is getting implants, she might as well get some of these installed, so that she can be alerted if a heart murmur develops, or her blood pressure increases, or she starts getting diabetes. Maybe even breast cancers could be diagnosed earlier. These might mean that her life expectancy increases because many medical problems could be diagnosed earlier.

The last suggestion I have is their uses for navigation and sensing. The volume of a breast implant is easily enough to accommodate many devices, and a GPS navigation device would be another good contender for space. By again using vibration, a woman could feel which direction she needs to go in, or see arrows on a display, with maybe some tourist information. Other gadgets such as ego badges could be implanted to match her personality electronically with potential partners in a night club. I’m sure the uses are endless.