What a beautiful world this will be,
What a glorious time to be free - I.G.Y, by Steely Dan.
New Year's Eve is a traditional time for reflection as well as looking forward. As has become customary now I used my futuristic device to keep up with time's progress as New Year's Day swept invisibly toward me at 700 mph. With technology which was rare or unimaginable just a couple of decades ago I watched the celebratory fireworks in far away capitals and sent best wishes to my worldwide network of electronic Tamagochi social media friends. For a short while at least I felt an infinitesimal part of a much larger connected humanity, collectively greater than the sum of our individual parts. There was a sense of achievement in having survived the past year, and an expectancy about the one to come; a feeling of the slate being wiped clean ready for a new, hopeful narrative to be written in its place. But along with the temporary festivity was the certain knowledge these sentiments would begin to fade with the greying of the first January dawn, and in reality last as long as the new year's resolutions.
As I get older I become more contemplative; this actual moment is the future which once seemed so far away; one of Moon bases, Mars colony domes, hypersonic travel with your in-flight meal contained in a pill here on earth, along with limitless energy and bronzed, healthy couples wearing crisp white kilts holding hands while gazing in awe at the fantastic utopian cityscape they'd helped create; looking forward together to their wonderful lives ahead... and we all know what became of those dreans! Still, it might have been worse; we were at least spared the skin tight shiny silver onesies some graphic artists imagined we'd be wearing by now, and fortunately nuclear powered flying hovercars never became a reality; can you imagine the carnage if they had? "Have you been contaminated in an accident that wasn't your fault? Call our no-win no-fee hotline..."
Indeed the future is now. Somehow we as a species have managed to grope our way here and survived up to this moment, avoiding both annihilation and the more extreme fashion faux-pas. We even have an actual space station orbiting high above to inspire us, and also the ubiquitous Wireless Communicators... But it's always the ones you don't see coming which get you, and my, how we have been blindsided!
Two decades ago the idea people would voluntarily wear a device on their wrist which would record their location as well as all of their physical activity and publicly share the data so gathered would have been part of a dystopic novel. Stop and think about that for a moment; criminals on bail or serving community sentences get them free, and I'm sure the time will soon come when they become compulsory with each citizen having a daily government mandated exercise quota to fulfill or risk being discriminated against in the provision of state services... Do you still think your fit band is so cool? Nor is the idea of users being completely absorbed by their personal devices to the exclusion of everything else part of a fictional zombie apocalypse, but an everyday pavement hazard to be avoided.
Our mundane obsidian tiles have more computing ability than all of NASA once did, and in some respects can outperform even some supercomputers. It seems incredible that a collection of miniature chips printed, tested, and assembled by robots has such infinite potential - but instead ends up used for playing Candy Crush or Angry Birds. At least if that annoying woman on the bus insists on polluting your aural environment with liquid plops or metallic sprinklings every time she levels up you can put your earbuds in and listen to the songs of artists long gone you downloaded for free without the use of any wires, or stream radio stations from thousands of miles away via the vehicle's WiFi. You could also inform all of your friends of the fact as well, but by the time you've posted it on your social wall, the chances are you'll have made yourself travel sick... Isn't technology wonderful?
However there is a downside as well. Philip K Dick's prescient warning, "There will come a time when it isn't 'They're spying on me through my phone' anymore. Eventually, it will be 'My phone is spying on me." goes largely unheeded. Governments and corporations spaff themselves with delight at the amount of intimately personal information people unwittingly or willingly allow to be broadcast. This is just another aspect of the Orwellian world we've allowed to grow around us, though it doesn't have to be this way. Anyone with an enquiring mind can soon find many apps, ways, and means of poking their fingers in the all seeing eyes. If you're one of those involved in creating privacy focused apps then I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you; often the work you do goes unrecognised, but people such as I who care are thankful for it. If you're one of the unaware, I urge you to educate yourself and join the digital resistance.
How do I see the future of mobile technology developing? In one of my stories I imagined the Scroll, a thin, flexible phablet-like device which with a tap could roll itself into a tightly wound cylinder, or wrap itself around your wrist as a cuff. Replacing its battery would be as easy as peeling the old one off the back - no prying off a cover required - and smoothing on the self-adhesive new one as you would a plastic film screen protector. I don't know whether it will become a reality or remain an impossible dream, just another example of how we seem to have reached our apogee before the relentless gravity drags us back down again. But whatever the future holds, just appreciate what it is you're most likely reading this chapter on; you have in your hand or your pocket a veritable collection of miracles.
