There's a chapter or two in a Madeline L'Engle book that describes a race of aliens that have no concept of sight. There was an extended conversation with one of the protagonists, where each side tried to explain perception on the other side of the sense gap.
I've pondered for some time the different senses that nonhuman animals have, and what it would be like to have them. Bees can see ultraviolet, whales and bats hear sonar, many ocean creatures can sense electrical fields, etc.
I ran across an article a few minutes ago (thanks, Slashdot!) that completely wowed me…it begins, "I am beta testing a new sense." This article, "My New Sense Organ", discusses a device called Northpaw that gives the wearer the sense of perfect direction. I won't go over what the article says, but it's well written and entirely fascinating.
So now I'm completely geeking out over current ideas on senses, and postulation of future senses. I go looking around online for more technology-driven new senses, and get a couple more articles easy. Sixth Sense Technology From MIT describes a setup that recognizes objects and provides you extra information. "One of my favorite features so far is the ability for the device to recognize that you are holding a book and almost instantly show you the average rating it received on Amazon.com, let you view user comments, etc." Integrated internet, anyone?
And "New Display Technology Makes Use of the Tactile Sense" is one I missed back in January. Scientists in Germany have been able to use these micro gel droplets to create visual images that are also tactile…sort of a feel-o-vision.
I'm not sure how odd it is that all this makes me think about how our databases see data. Think about it…in the span of just my career, we've seen the addition of image, XML, and geospatial data storage and manipulation in relational databases. How long until we'll be able to store tactile information, smell, intuition? I'm looking back on the history of a race looking forward. A lot of things that we predict over the centuries come to fruition. I think they saw cars coming about a zillion years ago. But some things evolve subtly, and seem to leap up out of the blue. The absolute coolest thing is how we often delight ourselves with new discoveries and unexpected directions.