O O Ø O O O O
Space-age Technology
Whatever happened to the future? It’s 2006. We’re more than halfway thru the decade-with-no-name (The noughts? The Zeros? The two-thousands?) and still, the future is nowhere in sight.
I grew up in the late 70s, early 80s. It was the start of the computer era. At the time, we thought the future was around the corner. We had personal robots. We had a space program. We had home control. It was just a matter of time for personal hovercraft and videophones.
Except none of that actually happened. Almost 30 years later, and we still have all the same stuff.
Okay. Walkmans went digital. They call them iPods now. We don’t really have videphones yet. In fact, our phones have hardly changed at all. Hell, the wired ones don’t even have SMS.
The hovercraft are nowhere in sight. Cars are pretty much exactly the same. They apparently have computers in them, but not anything you can actually play with. The really expensive cars can apparently tell you where you are, or how to get where you’re going, but I don’t have one yet. You still have to steer them, and parallel park them. And take them into the shop to figure out what’s wrong with them. And ugh, they still run on gasoline. How turn-of-the-20th-century is that? Sure, they always talk about the cool technologies at the car shows, like heads up displays with night vision, cars that park themselves, and sensors that tell you how close the next car is, but have you actually seen any of these features? Was it a viable option last time you bought a car?
And then the computers—don’t even get me started. Apart from a little cold-cathode eye candy they are the same. PARC happened in the 70s, and we haven’t really gotten much further. We don’t have that cool, graphical access to everything we see on TV. Programming is still largely an ugly, text-based thing that you may as well be doing in emacs, and hence, nothing is programmable anymore. User interfaces got better for a while, then we went to the web, and stepped back to pre-macintosh era. Computers never really got connected to anything outside their little beige boxes. Where’s my home control? Where’s my IP-addressable thermostat? Where’s my fridge that automagically compiles a grocery list?
You might argue with me, saying that these things are “almost here,” but hey, they were “almost here” in 1979. Is the Roomba a big step up from Hero-1? Is home control really any different than when I bought my first book on the subject? Why doesn’t my computer know who is sitting in front of it? Why does it take longer to boot up now than it did then? Why is it still freezing in my bedroom, and roasting in my bathroom?
I guess all that “space-age” technology really lived up to its name. The best technology the 70s had to offer.
Kjell Wooding
January 24, 2006
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January 25th, 2006 at 12:47 am
Do you really want videophones? Think about it!
Do you really want the average person flying around? I don’t want the average pilot flying while I’m in the plane!
January 25th, 2006 at 11:21 am
I do have to agree with you on the subject, but in part, because of circumstance. Consumer technology didn’t change all that much because there hasn’t been a time for consumer technology to be priority number one in a lot of places.
Ever since the end of Vietnam the US (which, at this point is safe to assume “US” includes every english speaking country, germany, france, japan, china…basically every country we’re not taking military action against at the time :p) has been in international military action in every country it shouldn’t be in…which is one of the many culprits of technological robbery for consumer products.
When (or -if-) this action of sorts stops…technology should be back on track for people like us.
January 25th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Whoah. There’s a consipiracy theory for you.
I was under the impression that most of our technological advances were driven (initially) by a military impetus; i.e. Computers, Radio, GPS, night vision, robotics, rockets, planes, and so forth.
I was also under the impression that the G8 economies were driven largely by consumer demand, not military spending.
January 26th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
As westerners we have generally have no clue to the technology that is 2 years ahead in Japan, Korea etc…the economies are consumer driven for sure. Unfortunately even if the cool stuff does come out we don’t see half of it. In general I do agree we are about 15 years behind where we should be according preview predictions. Of course I’m not quite ready to deal with an AI robot that manages my house when I’m gone. As long as it’s limited maybe, but I’m just not that lazy yet.
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