The first wearable computer was first designed in the shape of a phone by Mororola in the mid '70s and was just a radio transceiver until recently. As of recent however, these phones have organizer features, web, email, and freeze ups. Next, they will have speech processors, voice recognition, and face recognition. In the next decade, these "phones" will change physical shape into collar tags, necklaces, hats, glasses, shoes, shirts and so on. But these "phones" or lets call them computers as that will continue to become their primary use - to compute data and not to help you transmit your to other people. So, these 'computers', will not only be delegated to your head and be able to notify your doctor when you have a cold, but will also communicate from your belt and tell you when you need to eat - how fat you are, and maybe what to eat. Your shoes will tell you (and your shoe manufacturer) how much you walk, how you walk, when you walk, when you should get another pair of shoes.
All of these computing devices are going to require one hell of a battery, but don't worry you're good at supplying energy to your devices. You probably plug in your cell phone at least once a day and change out the batteries in your tv remote, wall clocks and other devices once a year or so. So why not remembering to plug in a couple dozen more devices - especially if they remind you? Because they shouldn't have to remind you. Your shoes are moving as you walk, your belt is flexing as you bend, and your glasses are shielding your eyes from the rays from the sun, and if you have a cold that's just more energy for your hat. So, you will be charging your devices, just not necessarily plugging them in.
Now, what about communications? Well, besides communicating to your computer/phone and updating your itinerary and emailing your boss to cancel your appointment when the road notifies your phone that it is too congested for you to possibly make it using your form of transportation or because your belt notifies your phone that you really really need food now. Your shoes are also communicating how you walk - which foot you prefer, how much pressure parts of your foot prefer, and reporting how the shoe itself it holding up to the shoe manufacturer and your doctor.
What happens when your belt says it's time to eat or excrete? Do you really want a computer telling you these things? And do you really want a computer telling others these things about you? I think the more appropriate question would be whether you will have a choice. And the very succinct answer is NO.
I once told someone that I thought that in less than 50 years we'd be tapped into the internet on a much more personal level. With glasses that have a camera and come with face recognition software and will identify people to you and previously stored thoughts/notes about them, their phone number, etc. He commented that he wouldn't wear them, that he wouldn't want the possibility of others knowing who he'd seen and how he thought of them - I agree. But I asked him if he really thought he'd have a choice. He thought he would. I asked if he thought he might still be working in 50 years - maybe. So, I asked if he thought he could still be competitive in a workplace where everyone knew everyone else's name and their contact information immediately at site and he didn't? The discussion ended pretty swiftly there after.
We are currently surrounded by computers - some even wear them now. So what happens when we are constantly looking through them? Now much more will we accomplish by being able to communicate our ideas to everyone in our every conscious moment? Only time can tell that for certain, but given the history of our technology and communications I see the magnitude of our inventiveness increasing to a staggering event - by today's standard.
In the future, the only disconnect will be with those in space. Those of us who decide to colonize the moon will have 3 seconds of delay between us and the majority of the information that we hope to access - which will be on Earth for some time to come. Those on Mars will have over a minute of disconnect. This might not seem like much, but when compared with the milliseconds and nanoseconds of information disconnect experienced by those of us still living on Earth, it will become staggeringly debilitating.
I believe that this forum will help me with my writing in a couple of ways. Firstly, it will help me get the documents that I have prepared on this subject off of my computer which i think will help to better preserve them. Second, it will give me the incentive to make much needed spelling and grammar corrections to them. As I hope to present a bit more than 'fluff' - what an english teacher referred to writing that I think she would have preferred to call 'crap' - and something that people might enjoy reading versus being turned off by countless grammatical and spelling errors (as I often am when reading well thought but poorly written articles. Third, I would hope to get *thoughtful* feedback.
I think that my third incentive needs a bit definition when concerned with the loose term thoughtful. I don't expect Hubble, Dirak, Einstein, Newton, or Galileo to be reading my writing - as they're dead. Though, I doubt that Hawking, Tyson, or any other - still alive - great minds to read my work. What I would expect is that if you wish to give me feedback, you abide by a couple of 'rules', so please:
Last, the pictures on the slide show may or may not have been taken by me. Most were taken on family vacations and since we only had one (fairly) high end camera - the talented photographers that we all are - had to share. So I can't say which of these pictures I took and which I didn't (unless I was in it - and that is rare).
I think that my third incentive needs a bit definition when concerned with the loose term thoughtful. I don't expect Hubble, Dirak, Einstein, Newton, or Galileo to be reading my writing - as they're dead. Though, I doubt that Hawking, Tyson, or any other - still alive - great minds to read my work. What I would expect is that if you wish to give me feedback, you abide by a couple of 'rules', so please:
- Say more than five words - "You're an idiot" "Love your writing" - I DON'T CARE
- Unless you are pointing a unbiased and blunt untruth I have stated, take more than five minutes to think about what you are saying.
- Make your point and be done with it - don't keep reiterating a point you've already made, don't put incessant carriage returns (aka - 'enter') like a teenage chat room.
- Don't type everything big and bold, small and blending in with the background, or using all caps.
Last, the pictures on the slide show may or may not have been taken by me. Most were taken on family vacations and since we only had one (fairly) high end camera - the talented photographers that we all are - had to share. So I can't say which of these pictures I took and which I didn't (unless I was in it - and that is rare).