Some people work in environments where they're given a lot of information, a lot of to-do lists," he says. "But because of the hectic nature of their jobs, they have an inability to write down notes in a timely fashion. A memory prosthesis would allow them to record it and then, later on, have the ability to retrieve it.

Forget a name? A muttered request into a wireless "memory prosthesis" — a chip attached to the eyeglasses, perhaps — will trigger powerful indexing software to query a personal database at home and whisper back the identity of a face.

If memory loss were physical, like the loss of an arm or leg, doctors might consider replacing the part that didn't work with a sort of memory prosthesis.