Beam me up Yinnon
The newly released Star Trek movie reminded of watching the first TV series way back in the late 1960s. When a member of the crew of the Starship Enterprise entered the bridge, the doors would boldly open as they entered and magically close behind them… that was science fiction to have intelligent doors. Now we take it for granted that when we enter a building the doors will open automatically as we approach to let us pass through. It’s a constant disappointment that they don’t make the ’swooshy’ noise as in Star Trek, but nonetheless each time I use one I am reminded that I am living in “future-world”.
So where is all this leading?
It’s actually another piece of Star Trek technology – the computer. In Star Trek the crew talked the the ship’s computer. They’d say “Computer… give me the coordinates for the nearest Class M planet”… and the computer would talk back to them. How good would it be to be able to do that?
These days most computers can speak the text off the screen, and we’ve had voice recognition software for dialling on your mobile phone for sometime now… or for word processing… speak into a microphone and the words appear on the screen. But none of this has really taken off yet for general use.
I recently replaced my old iphone with a new 3G iphone. I downloaded the free Google app which is much like the Google web page on your machines, but with one exception… it has voice search… you can speak your search term into the phone and Google does the rest bringing up the search results page in answer to your query. Sadly it doesn’t yet speak back, but that can’t be too far off.
I’m sure we”ll see the gradual end of the mouse/keyboard in the coming years as touch screen and voice technologies begin to provide a more human interface, and maybe even intelligent conversations with our computers.
Beam me up Yinnon
Is the future really going to be based on a continuing love affair with the computer?
As described in the latest blog, the computer now does what we want it to. We don’t have to learn ‘basic’ and spoon feed the thing to do simple commands, it now (usually) works as a tool that helps at the flick of a switch.
I read somewhere that more people log on at night now than switch on television. This is reflected in the huge drop in advertising income seen by TV companies.
So, our love affair with TV is dwindling. Its day is over.
What of computers?
My prediction is that interest will move from sedentary activitiy back to hands on, physical lifestyle. The grow your own gardening boom is just the tip of this iceburg.
Computers are here to stay, but only as a tool and not centre of free time activity. When do I plant my beans? I’l quickly Google that, then get out there in the fresh air and do something real. Virtual has it’s place, but real will always master!
Timescale? 20 years and computers will be firmly in the back seat. Place your bets!
There are more computers about today than ever. Your mobile phone probably has more computing power than Neil Armstrong did to get him to the moon and back.
Computers won’t stop us going out to do things, but they will certainly continue to be tools we use to organise our lives.