Slotted Technology- Visionary

Dear Reader, if you’re reading this, then we are in all likelihood, still connected like slotted race cars.

But what if technology is a disruption to our way of life?

There’s a part of me that just wants to hurry up and get old, so that I can see innovative technology in its golden years, in all its glory! Both tweaked and fully operational, as it was destined to be and not just downloadable bits & pieces that we agree to patch.

Innovative technology that’s specifically bought & sold, without warranty because it’s guaranteed already fully functioning, as it was designed to do.

It would be extremely nice to have the technology work in my home, as well as it did at Apple’s Genius Bar and be less daunting. Or at the very least, serve beer or cocktail for a user friendly environment.

Because as I go from rock & roll to rocking chairs and Nana launchers, those Lazy-Boy chairs with the easy stand-up lift, I want to glimpse the really good technology.  The kind of technology that improves the human condition and turns lives around.

Truth is, we all need a little more giddy-up and go in our smart technology.  So innovative that we all agree on climate change; we all see our better selves and we realize in  Maya Angelou’s words: “We are more alike my friends, than we are different.”

A future where tolerance is celebrated, patience is enjoyed and respect is doled out in equal proportions.  Surely if we can make driver-less cars without adding slots to our highways and roadways, we can…

Visionaries see that there is more on earth and it’s worthy.   Me?  I’m hurrying up to grow old, so I can catch up to technology & stay connected to people like you.

Technological Glee

For years, the term 20/20 referred to one’s vision, as measured by an eye chart; those rows of random letters, beneath a large capital letter “E”, which was taped to a wall.

20/20 beyond the occasional reference to hindsight, is also a timeline plotted on a sheet of graphing paper; expressed by those using the Gregorian calendar as 2020 A.D. it’s nearly here.

If there was a tape measure for mankind’s growth, it would show eons as decades and 2020 would be a milestone, a place to pause and take notes. And perhaps to let the retractable tape measure snap back into place.

Ten years ago, there was speculation of what 2020 A.D. would bring. It was amazing, mind-boggling technologies were suggested. Like moon mining and round-trip commercial space travel. Bio chips and synthetic human brains, paper thin television screens and all of it is nearly possible and none of it is amazing, or surprising, or extraordinary.

The Digital Age, with its accelerated technology, is a candy store and we’re like children. Lined up and ready to buy as much as we can carry. Our shiny coins are spent much too quickly, as we run up and down life’s aisles in technological glee. Our eyes wide with possibilities miss the connectivity of things, not asking deep questions, like “How much will it cost? How disruptive will it be?”

It’s all coming in so fast. Some people will whisper “Wow” and I’ll be among them.

It’s nearly here, this 2020 A.D. a date that we saw coming, without seeing. We’ll need correctable lenses, rose-colored 3D Google glasses to start recording how it was; just in case we need to put things back in place.

Eye Technology: What Would Gene Roddenberry See

Like so many others, I got excited when I read that Google was tinkering with glasses; that this eye technology might be a little more scientific than gadgetry got my attention. And then Google Glass was released.

The product did what it was touted to do, but it did little for technology in an aging world.

Google Glass is a toy for the outdoorsy types, who like to jump out of perfectly good airplanes and who like the thrill of scaling sheer mountainsides. But not so much for 75% of the Americans who wear some form of corrective lens and who have some degree of AMD- age-related Macular degeneration of the eye. America is getting older, perhaps it’s time to put away its toys.

I’m reminded of Opti-Grab, the fictional eyewear gadget that Steve Martin’s character invented in the movie, The Jerk. In the end, all its users ended up cross-eyed, for having repeatedly used the little eyeglass handle between their eyes. Label it gadget fail.

But could the influence of science fiction writers like Jules Verne and Gene Roddenberry, who gave us such great inspirational communication technology, likewise have stifled eye technology by mostly leaving it out of their written works?

What if Star Trek’s Lieutenant Commander LaForge had been cured of his blindness? What if scientists had eradicated that defect, would Google Glass have evolved as lighter version of the commander’s visor?
And maybe that’s the whole point, not to see the world as it is, but to see it as we would like it to be.

Because if we were given a pair of glasses that flipped images upside down, and we wore them for a few days, our brains would flip the images right side up. That’s been scientifically proven.

And I think that’s what happened last month, when Google released it’s Beta version of Google Glass. Now, it’s up to us to figure out some good use to put them to and for that, I’d like to first be paid.