Google is planning to build a powerful “human database” computer, and has full backing from the U.S. government to do so. What is the database going to do? Provide a “general life assistant” that will be able to predict what you might need before you even realize it.

It will be personalized to:

• Target specific people who are interested in certain subjects
• Predict market trends, fashions and even fluctuating moods and human behavior
• Provide you search results that you may want (but didn’t necessarily ask for), such as where to buy a certain book at the lowest price

By, quite literally, organizing the world’s information, Google says they can make life easier and even better. But critics say the database is an “Orwellian style threat to civil liberty and human privacy” that will “harvest all our most intimate daily habits.”

Whether or not the human database will turn out to be a panacea or a threat to life as we know it remains to be seen … but if you look at the photo below, created by a man named Jason for a Fark.com photoshop contest with the theme “Google, 15 years in the future,” it sure gets you thinking (and at any rate is good for a quick smile and laugh -- two keys to your health and happiness!).

Sure would be nice if this one came true!

PrisonPlanet.com May 28, 2007