Copyright Ian Pearson, BT Futurologist
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á Daydream
á In the future, our lives will be greatly enhanced by the global superhighway. Ultra-smart computers, sophisticated robotics and unlimited capacity communications will make every aspect of our everyday lives pleasant. Machines will do all the work while we enjoy the results. We will be always in touch, always in control. It will all be so smooth as to be unbelievable. But technology has a habit of turning out different than planned. Let's remember that the telephone was once thought to be useless except for listening to opera.
á 2020, Life at Home, the bad day
á Music, flat panel speakers, paintings. House v Mozart because kids up first.
á Loo phobia, plans diet, plot schemes to fool it
á Smart fridge, time locks, video camera, microwave to switch on if too many calories..
á Kitchen rage. Insurance, video proof
á Videophone rings, video bathrobe.
á Living room, virtual fish tanks, electronic paintings. Flushed the real fish.
á Home manager, human interfaces, remembers everything.
á Computers, keywords. romantic interludes recorded, digitally enhanced, evidence.
á Zippergate will catch up with all of us. All Clinton said was 'sack my cook'.
á Personal screens, 3d sound positioning
á Box room holodeck, fractal matter, T1000, direct sensory links. Social problems
á Orgasmatron celebrity recordings, electronic probe linked to septal area,
á Current enthusiasm for networked sex is greater then electric skills
á Public buildings, simulated oak beams, sawdust and dirt, with pubs changing period regularly. This allows them to filter out the real world and block cellphones.
á Digital TV, vicar. 'Emmanuel in the Amazon'.
á Robot cat, batteries, teases real cat, everybody teases it, robotic psychiatrists, Joanne Pransky.
á Vet when the dog eats it.
á Insect robots, lollipop, magpie.
á Kids ambush the surviving robots
á Food shopping , smart waste bin, labels, custard proof electronics.
á Safeway delivers but ice cream melts, away with cat, knows Safeway's number!
á Clothes, Leonardo Di-Caprio or Kate Moss. Laser scan, junk email from plastic surgeons, pictures of how you could look. People never been less happy about their shape.
á Smart materials, extra Lycra to smooth out the various folds until the surgery.
á Electronic pocket money, sweets & booze; playground black market
á Provenance, $10 Bill gave Monica for dry cleaning her dress, spent on spinach dips
á Electronic cash is truly global so Euro is an irrelevance
á On way to supermarket.
á RTI and in-car entertainment, runs on fuel cells.
á Tourist information, M25
á Scam for your next holiday. Huge Planes, sublet seat
á Cat booked you a slot on M25, computer must drive or rabbit
á Tolling and paid overtaking, agent negotiation. Same in shops. Make living by clogging up queues
á Video T-shirt, cartoons or advert. Store positioning, ads depending on profile. Loyalty points
á Precise alerts to special offers etc. Electronic shopping list, shop blind.
á Active contact lenses, arrows for navigation and robocop style information overlays,
á Beans shelf flashing. The chips in the products try to attract attention. Watch them slug it out
á Sony's infrared technology can undress the girls, laser surgery when you go blind.
á Communicate via com-badge, doubles as an Ego badge, Parties, woman of dreams
á Brown paper bag not needed. Blue bag instead.
á Body-net positioning accurate to millimetres, so she can record exactly where you've been to compare with her friends later.
á Shopping in shared spaces, new friends, computer friends, withdrawal. Computer intent on introducing you to every compatible person in the country.
á Used by government to keep people off the streets. But later you go to a real party anyway.
á Bore enhancement, sound cancellation and 3D sound positioning technology, active lenses make him look fashionably dressed.
á New era of apparent tolerance will result where everyone seems to be nice to everyone else.
á Surveillance everywhere linked to traffic control, photos of you speeding. Blackmail since they can now identify the passenger too,
á The Shame Show is one of the most popular on digital TV.
á Know everywhere you've been, who with, what you did, what you've caught, everything.
á All on a single database, fully networked
á All available for £50 from your local bobby.
Work
á All care workers in 2020 because of stress from technology trying to make our lives more fulfilling
á All other jobs automated.
á Tech-free zones are the main holiday camps where you go for technology detox.
á Macdonald's v French restaurant
á Hospital, nice cuddly nurse v R2D2.
á Child care workers too.
á Nothing 3-year-old proof, digestive biscuits in the CD player, dismantle the cat, and pull the legs of the grass cutting robots, while repeating the mantra "Daddy will fix it".
á Kids only love technology because they are too young to know any different.
á Virtual companies or virtual co-operatives.
á Companies with no human employees, can't tell which, synthetic personalities at customer face
á Make angry to tell if human. Aggression, keeps care workers busy, computers don't mind at all.
á Agents v people, computers dominate boardrooms, pocket calculators replaced half the BT board
á Information companies just roaming algorithms so don't pay taxes, industrial companies miffed.
á And finally, old and grey, link brain to computers thousands of times faster.
á One atom per bit, one ten thousandth of a pinhead to store your whole mind.
á Bus runs you down, backed up on the network. Kids still have dad, company gets you free
á Side-line for bus companies,
á Use satellite positioning and tracking to ensure clean kill with minimal damage to the bus.
á Won't mind. Your body has died and your soul cleared off to Heaven
á Down here you carry on, entirely electronic.
á Travel at light speed, pick up a hire android at the other end.
á Multiple versions. Hindu, full realisation of consciousness, single global mind.
á Forget reincarnation, try all possible existences simultaneously,
á One bound to hit good karma dead centre, delete the rest.
á Immortality, infinite intelligence and mobility, keeping up with the Jones's will ensure that everyone will make the jump to Homo Machinus.
á Biological humans will eventually become extinct in 2200.
á Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.