The Computer Buzz

August 27th, 2009

Nome and Paul Van Middlesworth - owners - The Computer Factory
 

Convergence: Tomorrow is today

It’s quitting time and Tom is walking to his car. He flips open his 4G-cell phone and says “home.” The driveway security camera shows Tom’s wife Ashley’s car in the driveway. Panning around Tom sees Junior mowing the front yard and the dog sleeping on the porch. The backyard camera finds Tom’s teenage daughter Candy sunning at the pool. In the kitchen camera Ashley is unloading a grocery bag.

Ashley looks up at the camera. “Hi there 007, spying again?” Tom hits the talk button and his face appears on the kitchen monitor.

“I’m on my way. Need me to pick up anything?” Ashley poked the touch screen. The screen split with Tom on the right and her menu on the left. “Feta cheese, I forgot the Feta. Would you pick it up on your way home?” “Sure,” said Tom, “I’m on my way.”

At dinner it was Tom’s turn to pick the background music and both Candy and Junior grumbled about his selection as Credence Clearwater Revival pulsed through the surround sound system.

After dinner Tom and Ashley adjourned to the living room to watch the episode of “Desperate Housewives” they missed while sail boating on Sunday. Tom reminisced, “Remember when we had Cable TV?” “Oh yeah,” said Ashley. “If you missed a show and failed to record it you were SOL. With everything now on the Internet we can watch any show any time.”

“Same with movies,” said Tom. “We can watch any movie with the click of a button. Our home theater big screen and sound system gives us the stadium theater experience without spending $50 for tickets, popcorn, drinks and gas money.”

Ashley nodded “Speaking of money, how about the fact that we don’t pay for local or long distance phone calls, telephone lines or cable TV any more. One bill only, just our broadband ISP.”

Tom sighed. “And the space we’ve saved by dumping the slide projector, carrousels, photo albums, DVD players, TIVO box, phones, answering machines and three printers. Now our slides, home movies and photos are complexly organized on a hard drive and our color laser printer can be accessed from any PC anywhere in the house.” Ashley chimed in “or anywhere in the world through the Internet.”

“That’s right,” said Tom, “Remember how much your parents enjoyed hours of our home videos when we visited them in England last year. All we brought was your cell phone. We hooked it to their big screen TV and accessed our home entertainment center through the Internet. They were blown away.”

“It’s a great comfort knowing that all of those priceless memories are completely and safely backed up on the Internet and that we never need to fear losing them by theft, flood, fire or earthquake. I really like that,” said Ashley.

The technology to accomplish what is described above and much, much more is already here. Going forward, the convergence of technologies in GPS, communication, entertainment, computing power and the WWW will change the way we live and interact forever. Someone once said, “change is inevitable, progress is not.”

We must be careful.