WEARABLE COMPUTERS (2):
My parents described the terrible, boring mass media of 1998. It was like this: you wanted to find out from radio or television what happened in your home town (the tornado just ravaged the region 10 hours ago). Well, you could not. You had to wait for hours for your topic, listening to all sort of unrelated news, until some pearl would be found in the sand.
No, radio did not die. We still have a lot of commuting, and most drivers listen to personalized news, voice mail, and music. The only surprise for all of us: by 2008 the only radio to survive was Interactive Radio.
We are jogging and walking a lot in the 21st Century, much more than before. I usually let my wearable computer read my textbooks, or browse the Web (in audio mode) while jogging . It all started when a scientist observed an unusual increase in heart and circulatory diseases, because of sitting too much. That was the start of Wearable Audio. A worldwide movement developed around these wearables, as we have them today.
My father starts now his working day by jogging. He tells me how different it was, and how strict was his work place, the dress code, the lack of creativity, the limitations in thinking. They used to forbid the workers to browse the Web. Nonsense! Competing efficiently depended on the Web.
He was also telling me about the mountain of paper used at that time, when the trees were shredded, transformed in paper, and then discarded in the garbage. Well, we still use paper... But a paper file looks so different... When I go to my father's office, I watch the small cabinet with contracts, without opening it. An image appears on my glasses, with electronic data: an index of documents, file titles, all easy to find. Quite neat.
Most of us seem to have sunglasses today. But not because of increased ultraviolet radiation (although is true, we should). Yesterday I had to visit my doctor. He looked at me with his thick glasses, without talking, for a long time. I got really concerned. "Is there anything wrong?", I asked. "No, he smiled, I was reading some new research about your hyperglicemia, with my wearable". He read my medical file also, scrolling on his glasses. Well, he should have done this before!
Otherwise life is going well. I plan to take this semester courses in Nanobot Colonies at the University of Paris (really cool), Human-Machine Psychology at Harvard, besides my regular American courses. And swim here in Australia also, at the same time. I travel however a lot, through the Virtual Reality Networks. One day I will really go to France, but until then I learned about Paris by virtually walking all the streets together with my French friends who are there.
Go To Page: 1 2
