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To: nommedeguerre who wrote (18301)	9/20/1998 12:01:00 AM
From: Ryan Finley	Respond to of 213177

<<<Two things the would-be criminal would know from any "wired" person in the crowd: A) they have extra money to burn on gadgets. B) it surely takes a major credit-card to belong to the "system". The more elite it is the more likely the target will have money. The less people involved the more of a wealth-beacon this item would be. Might as well wear a David Letterman dollar-bill jacket and act surprised when you are mugged.>>> (suit and tie == wealth) -> mugging Methinks that someone dressed up like a cyborg would attract less criminal element. "I must find Sara Conner!" :) As for the entire mugging issue, I live in peaceful Madison, WI where the only dangerous element is a drunken fraternity member...

To: nommedeguerre who wrote (18301)	9/20/1998 9:16:00 PM
From: HerbVic	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 213177

As Dmill Yantis walked into the restaurant, he surveyed the crowd for their tags. The dark glasses he was wearing transposed a text balloon over the head of each person on which he rested the nearly invisible target crosshair. Within most of the balloons sprang the persons name and occupation. Others would have a short personal pitch. Some, a very few, would simply have the word "PRIVATE," indicating that they preferred their social identities remain anonymous. Since this was a restaurant, all the tags contained icons indicating seating preferences. Occasionally the crosshair revealed nothing, indicating that the individual was not on The System. As the waitress approached, he rested the crosshair on the bridge of her nose. "Welcome Mr. Yantis!" she purred. "I see you prefer non-smoking. May I show you to a table?" Her tag revealed that she was Dawn Owerball, an employee. She was also on the macrochat channel. Waitresses usually used this channel to allow their customers to summon them or make order corrections or flirt silently. He transmitted a couple of friendly compliments that were preprogrammed to be ready under the current set of circumstances. "Yes! Thank you." Her sudden blush indicated that she had received her compliments. "Thank you. Do you have our menu?" she asked as she turned and lead the way through the maze of tables. "Has it changed since last Monday?" "No." "Then I have it." As he followed, he surveyed the room for acquaintances. A strange uneasiness crept over him as his crosshair passed over the portly young man in the corner. Calib Otto? Not able to place the name, he fumbled in his left pocket for the mouse button that would tell him if he had ever encountered the person before. There. It was up on the display. One encounter. It was over 3 months ago in a K-Mart. "Oh... yes... Now I remember." He almost spoke aloud. The man had been ahead of him in the check-out line, and was rude to a fault, swearing at the poor clerk and generally disrupting everyone's day. It seemed that the scanner did not agree with the advertised price. As he took his seat at the table, he decided to not advertise his presence and switched to "PRIVATE" mode. Then he pulled up the menu. "I'd prefer iced tea to drink." he spoke to his waitress. "OK! Be back in a minute." she answered as she turned on her heels. He looked over the menu, decided on the blue plate special, and transmitted the tag for the meal on the macrochat. The waitress would have his order before she had drawn his tea, and would relay it to the kitchen on their own network. While waiting, he decided to check the news channel. Nothing in the past hour. "Oh, well. Good! Let's look at the ads then." He fumbled with the mouse and suddenly the room was full of live action billboards with a different ad on each one. Some were mildly amusing. He waited until the interesting ones had cycled and were repeating, then he switched to the communications channel. His son would be eating lunch at school about now. "Hello?" The telephone voice of his son came from above his ear. The display's thermometer indicated a good strong audio only link. "Hey, DJ! What cha' dooin'?" "Hi Dad! Eating fishsticks. What's yours?" "Roast beef and gravy with mashed potatoes and green beans. Fish sticks? That reminds me. You want to go fishing with me after school? I've got the depth finder link up. We can see what we are doing this time." "Sorry Dad. I've got a group chat on polymearese chain reactions scheduled." "You can't fish and do that?" "Well, I could but this stuff is pretty complicated. It'll take all my concentration to keep up with the thread. Maybe next time. OK?" "OK. I'll call Pete. He's always ready to watch the fish. He's not too good at catching them, though." "OK. Catch you later, Dad." "Later." The waitress was approaching with his lunch. ______________________ All the technology is here. What remains is the process of assembly and commercialization. Good luck Ian! HerbVic