The magic pill, NZT, is an experimental drug taken by the main character (Eddie) in the action thriller, "Limitless". The movie is about the series of fortunate and unfortunate events following Eddie's encounter with the pill.

We all heard the myth that large part of our brains remain unused. What the pill does is to allow its users to fully exploit all faculties of our brains. So after Eddie took the pill, his intellectual power was tremendously expanded. He was able to finish a novel in 4 days, learn a new language effortlessly, acquire new knowledge 100 times faster than Einstein could, and even become an god-like invincible stock trader.

There's always a catch, of course. The intellectual enhancement is only temporary. When NZT wore off, users would revert back to their dumber forms. Things can get ugly when a user stopped taking the pills, the withdrawal could cause severe damages to both the brain and the rest of the body, leading to death (or brain death).

The ending is most intriguing. After some extraordinary events, we see Eddie was now running for president of United States. His former boss, a relentless multi-billionaire, Warren Buffett kind of guy (only eviler), revealed to Eddie that the lab that made NZT was bought out by him. He threatened to cut Eddie off from the only supply of NZT, unless Eddie did him some dirty favors after getting elected to be the president.

That didn't scare Eddie at all. He claimed that he had the drug perfected, fixing all the defects and side effects. With Eddie's super intelligence, we can be rest assured that there was nothing impossible for him, including the creation of a more powerful "Smart Pill" that allows him to make an even more powerful "Smart Pill". Infinite intelligence? Maybe, like a "Big Bang" of intelligence. (I'm a strong believe in this happening one day, with or without drug.)

And why he wanted to be the president? Doing good? Got nothing better to do? Run the world the right way (my way)? Just hope that Eddie won't say to us what he said to his old boss, "you should be glad about me not working for you, because you'll end up as my bitch."

Do you covet Professor Xavier's power to tap into other people's minds? It may not be as physically damaging or visually impressive as an energy blast, but having exclusive private information can be extremely powerful too, just like the movie shows us. Breaking into the enemy's mind to see his next move, you can preempt a lethal blow. For more leisure use, you can better assess your mating opportunities in the nightclub. To be more specific, you probably want to zero in on the girl who also likes to watch "Glee", loves reading "Techcrunch" and lists Korea as their favorite country.

It doesn't sound too futuristic? That's what I thought too when I was using the iPhone app "Sonar". As soon as you connect with Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, it tells you what other Foursquare users are around you. And if they have Facebook and/or Twitter already hooked up with their Foursquare accounts, the app will analyze how well you match with that nearby person, or at minimum shows you who your common friends are. Oh, you can also send that person a tweet saying "Hey pretty, I'm a total stranger, guess where I am, I'm watching you mu-ah".

Using an "Sonar"-equipped iPhone is still not very "Professor X-like". Luckily, as Ray Kurzweil the "Transcendent Man" predicts, we will soon have tiny but super powerful computers embedded into human bodies. Imagine an iPhone with a size of red blood cell inside your body, allowing you to make phone calls (I believe there will be a cooler word for "calls"), search nearby people, And, look up their social profiles, connections, and every information that they happily share with the world. Oh, you can probably leave a message inside their brains, I mean inboxes. Sounds fun…