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The Amazing Time We Live In
When you think about it, it's not too bad today. We can do some things that could easily be described as "magic" by anyone who doesn't know how our lovely devices work. I'm actually quite sure a lot of people view it as just that. Magic. Things that do amazing things, we don't know how nor do we really care about that little fact, and we have become somewhat blinded to the sheer awesomeness of what does happen on a regular basis, that it's almost equally incredible.
Take, for instance, the fact that we nowadays regularly perform video-calls as opposed to just talking to people far away and hearing them talk back to us. While it might not be on quite as large a scale as you would have imagined, specially considering what sci-fi has been promising us for decades, but a lot of us do have actual conversations while able to see the other person. Take the very podcasts on this fine network as an example. People from all over the world effectively gather in a virtual room to sit down and talk about things in one particular topic. Distances are no longer an obstacle, only bandwidth and time.
A lot of us run around in our lives toting a small, yet very capable computer in out pockets. It does all kinds of communication in text, voice and even video, tying into the above mentioned video-calling. Add to the fact that in the last couple of years the software available has both been increasing in number as well as in capability. It's perfectly realistic to answer a phone call, talk to someone, hang up, write down some notes, shoot a video, edit it and upload it to several of the largest video sharing sites on the Internet. Even more shockingly, the quality isn't bad. It might not look like a Hollywood production, but then again feature films are rarely shot on something as small as your average smartphone either. While it's far from free, a smartphone capable of this is well within buying power of a great deal of people today.
Computational prowess used to be relegated to government institutions, banks and the zaibatsu's of the world. Today you can stroll down to your nearest home electronics store or computer store and plunk down a very modest amount of money for a device that would have sent NASA into a frenzy if presented with it only some 20 years ago. One of the more popular PC's today, the iPad 2, has the equivalent capacity of a Cray supercomputer in the late 1980's to early 1990's. Difference is that the iPad 2 is easily portable, while the Cray supercomputer can't quite be called that.
Much to the chagrin of a lot of people who have been working with computers for a long time, the days of normal people being unable to understand or make use of a computer are long gone. Usability and relative user friendliness has increased by leaps and bounds over the last 30-25 years, giving people unprecedented ability to perform vastly complex tasks, like editing a photo, cutting together their own movie or creating a website. Consider also that a whole lot of applications these days are quite pedagogic and aids the newcomer quite a lot, and reduces a large threshold that once existed. Sure, the outcome might not be earth-shattering, but it's quite impressive none the less, in my mind.
Should you want to argue that price is a barrier, then just point your attention towards the many projects that aim to bring computing to everyone everywhere. The very interesting Raspberry PI project aimed at making ICT actually mean something by supplying a dirt-cheap computer designed for tinkering and learning in mind. Utterly astonishing what you can get for the very reasonable price of $35, wouldn't you say? And in all honesty, you can pick up a quite decent laptop for a very low cost these days and there's no shortage of them. Cheap and ubiquitous you say? I think so!
Through modern technology we can truly be together with people near and far, without having to actually move our bodies more than to the nearest computer and get online. If we have any artistic desires, those can often be aided and enhanced by a computational device of some kind, and not to mention spread to almost the whole human population in the blink of an eye.
While we still don't travel to the far stars, enjoy the wonders of a holodeck or have our own personal robots helping us in life, it's pretty darn impressive what we can do today. Who knows where we might be in another 10 or 20 years down the line?
Robert Falck
Robert is a freelance tech journalist from Sweden. You can follow his posts here on Bagel Tech and on his site streakmachine.com or you can follow him on twitter @streakmachine.
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Robert Falck