When asked about what I expect to happen in 2012 as far as technology is concerned, I offered these thoughts:
In the next few years I expect we'll see a spiraling increase in electronic dependency at least here in the US and other affluent nations. While some of us are already there, people will become more dependent on GPS, constant connectivity and a mind-numbing barrage of visual stimulation through the media. I expect the next logical step will be surgically implanted cellphones and then video feeds that display directly to the eye. Remember The Terminator?
Like a heart patient that's kept alive by a pacemaker, we'll become so hooked on our gadgets, that when the inevitable power glitch or EMP pulse from space reverts our phones, TVs and electronic ignition systems to inanimate silicon, we'll revert to immobile babbling chaos. And no, it won't take a monumental disaster to bring down our house of electronic cards. Perhaps it will be a tiny miscalculation that causes one satellite to crash into another which in turn triggers the domino-effect destruction of the entire satellite fleet.
Of course, the rest of the world that lives from day to day without Facebook, email and texting will be there to pick up the pieces. Until the electronic apocalypse comes, we'll be tortured with one pin-prick of electronic failure after another.
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The TV remote decides in your best interest that you really shouldn't watch Fox (anything)
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The furnace computer decides your house really should be 45 degrees year-round
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Your new smartphone starts sending videos non-stop to some garage in China where teenagers giggle at your antics
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Your car decides that each destination you program into the navigation system should include a trip through the Cleveland ghettos.
Cheery? Consider that the Windows Home edition is several orders of magnitude more complex than the software used to launch the Apollo missions. Consider that Windows users blindly (or automatically) post updates to their systems from some unseen site somewhere in the cloud. What happens if somehow some Dr. No takes over these servers and "updates" everyone's systems?
Welcome to the 21st century.
Bill Vaughn
