How about a finger on a touch screen digital camera, or a “galaxy view” view of your family and friends gathered around the globe. What if your “galaxy view” displayed you, your spouse, your kids and their friends, and it was controlled by a button? A good idea, lots of fun and an interesting way to connect with others. What if you could use 3D graphics, and your finger could pan, zoom and move through your photo’s virtual scene? Now that is fun. And how about a technology that makes it possible to experience the world from the point of view of a baby, or a toddler, or even a senior citizen?

If we can do this with our digital camera, television and any other device with a display, then we should be able to do the same thing with our body. With a body scan, the idea would be to take an image of your body, and then have that image converted into a computer file that can be viewed with a touch screen display using a browser, or whatever you want to do with your image. This could be used to keep track of your vaccinations, see if you need surgery, make sure your diabetic alert system is on, or whatever else you want to do with your image.

How about an ultrasound, or other form of electronic viewing, where your body is examined from the inside out? Your ultrasound would show you all your organs, and it would display your heart rate, blood pressure, as well as other bodily data. This is currently being used in hospitals. You would basically have your picture taken, have the electronic images converted into a digital file, and then have your images shown on a television screen, or some kind of monitor. It may even look similar to juggle, but I’m not sure.

Another thing that is getting close to reality is biometric skin recognition technology, where your skin is scanned and the computer figures out characteristics of your body based on its “reads”. These are usually done through things like finger prints, or retinal scans, which are somewhat similar. The thing is, these are very expensive things to buy, and they are also usually not very accurate. They catch ninety-eight percent of the time, but still, it isn’t perfect, and it isn’t something that your body can truly trust.

In short, what works like a finger on a screen is still up for debate. What is clear though, is that there are new technologies coming out every year that promise to change how we view and use our digital images. Computer vision has come a long way already, and these new technologies are only getting better. We may soon be able to take better digital pictures of ourselves, and our friends, and share them with the rest of the world… all with the snap to the photo button.

So, what does digital image mean? Like I said, that’s a good question. As technology progresses, the definition of “digital image” gets murkier. What it means to me may seem like digital images to you, and vice versa. What works like a finger on a screen for one person, may be just a dot on a poster for another.