Maybe they were right all along

Posted on February 28, 2010

During a lunch outing last week I noticed that as soon as everyone had ordered we all automatically whipped out our phones. Some were checking emails and BBMs on Blackberries while others were playing flick football on iPhones. I suddenly realised that to say the media landscape is changing would be an understatement. We’re witnessing a freakin’ revolution.

Over recent years the mainstream has been hit with live sports broadcasted in 3D, 1080P and Blu-Ray, USB sticks with 150 times more storage than my DX2/66 ever had (which cost $4k back in the day), wafer thin LED panels, lightning fast internet speeds, and iPhones that can do anything and everything you could possibly need. In the blink of an eye we’ve gone from 30sec Realplayer mosaics to streaming HD video.

When I was a kid, my dad’s OKI mobile phone was the size of a textbook; yet he was incredibly proud of it as it represented the next evolution from those shoulder pack phones. My dad was the Man as he strutted around with its antenna sticking out from the bulging bum-bag around his waist. It cost him a couple grand, was equally expensive to make calls (you paid for incoming calls too), and it had a battery life of around two hours (that’s standby mind you; talk time was something like 40 minutes). Fast forward to today and here I am, taking my Bold - which is more powerful than the computer I grew up with - for granted. And I know that in just a few years time I’ll look back at today and laugh at how impressed I was with such an unsophisticated, barbaric brick of a device.

Have you noticed that less people wear watches these days? And how many of us bother to have a home phone? Thank cell phones and affordable unlimited plans for that. Have you stopped to realise that with Google Maps we can now zoom and enhance on any street in any part of the world, just like that Gene Hackman hobbit in Enemy of the State?

Say hello to the future. Whenever I used to watch one of those popcorn sci-fi flicks set in the future, I would always think to myself how ridiculous it all was. Like that hologram computer Tom Cruise used in Minority Report. Pfffft! That shit would never happen. Tourists being able to visit outer-space like in Total Recall? Uh, I don’t think so.

During one of our many lunch debates we argued over Apple’s impending iPad and what influence it would have over all of us consumer zombies. A couple of people in the office think it will be a massive flop; and I can see the reasoning behind that. It really is, in spite of Jobs’ smoke and mirrors, nothing more than an over-sized iPod Touch. And it will never handle Flash for that matter (Kula pointed out that Flash would allow programmers to bypass Apple’s app store).

But my gut tells me that the iPad is going to change everything. Think about it; a couple of years ago we would’ve thought that watching videos and browsing the internet on a plate of glass would never happen. It would be impossible; mere fantasy. Yet today, loungers will no longer have to prop a laptop up on their knees. No longer will you need a magazine rack next to the shitter. You can now get rid of that bookshelf and hang that nice 50-inch plasma you’ve been brainwashed into buying. And for designers, photographers, creative agencies, artists, and pretty much anyone going for a job interview, massive portfolios will become a thing of the past. Just tuck an iPad under your arm and you’re all set. And hot on the heels of the iPad is Microsoft’s new Surface (which is pretty much an even bigger iPod Touch that’s mounted on a Frogger arcade machine).

I’ve only just come to the realisation that all of those whacky gadgets we’ve seen in futuristic movies are happening right before our eyes. And in just a few years, I’m certain we’ll see even bigger changes. It terms of media, it won’t be long before the internet swallows up conventional TV broadcasting in the same way as it has print.

My dad used to be (actually he still is) paranoid of all that Big Brother stuff. Over dinner he would always ramble on about how the Government has the technology to do this or that; that they could hear and see everything anyone ever did. I used to tune out and hope he’d shut up. Well Dad, maybe you were right all along.

I sometimes wonder who the Skynet equivalent would be in the real world, and I keep coming back to the same answer: it would have to be Google. They’ve snuck up in the shadows and cemented themselves as the spine of the internet. Nearly everything passes through their hands in one way or another, and that sort of information is priceless. Think about it. They can predict trends – in any field from real estate to fashion to entertainment – just by the frequency of searched topics. If Google were to create a magazine, it would be the most popular thing on Earth as they’d know exactly what the world wants to see at that particular point in time. And Google also has the capability to pinpoint potential sexual predators, pathological murderers and terrorists by analysing people’s search patterns. You really can’t help but be impressed.

But in the midst of this technological revolution, one question remains unanswered. Which movie got it right? Will our future turn out like ‘Mega-City One’ in Judge Dredd? Perhaps we’re headed towards the devastation in 2012 or the robot personas in Surrogates? Or maybe we’ll end up using the three sea-shells in Demolition Man.

Hmm… I better start liking Taco Bell.

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