Some Traveller inspiration from an unexpected place

[Greg Smith]

Hmm, why does the woman in the ad need to drive to a meeting?

Why does she need to go to a shop to buy clothes?

If everything is instantly available with crystal clear graphics and instant displays, there will be no need to leave the house.

Also would grandma not get dizzy when her phone image was whizzed around the table?

And if this is the future, buy shares in glass cleaner. NOW.

 

[Vile]

Why does she need to go to a shop to buy clothes?

Not wanting to get personal ... but, are you married?

 

[Stainless]

I must say, I didn't expect the general responses to this. I thought there'd be a lot of "cool", "wow", "good images to use in a game". Instead it seems to have risen the hidden Luddite in many.

Granted, it's glass-centric, but what do you expect? It's made by Corning, the world's largest glass manufacturer!

Yep, I can see the societal implications; dependency on technology and thus vulnerability, dislocation from reality, etc. Then again, my formative years were all pre-personal computer and pre-Internet (they came along while I was a PhD student), yet I don't feel any of the above, despite being glued to a computer for most of my waking hours.

For me, I see some great visual ideas for space stations, space ships, domestic homes, etc.

 

[Dave Chase]

Cut off the electricity to run their fancy gear, and they're speechless. Even a mobile phone needs its batteries charged - so in a blackout, the person with the strongest mobile battery gets the last word. Though obviously, he'll have nobody to talk to.

One problem with that theory, landline phones. POTS have their own power and usually remain operational during blackouts.

Actually, depending on who you trust to believe in, 40 to 60 % of familes no longer have a land line phone. They just have cell phone.

Dave Chase

 

[SSWarlock]

Actually, depending on who you trust to believe in, 40 to 60 % of familes no longer have a land line phone. They just have cell phone.

Dave Chase

And we use MagicJack over a radio-based ISP feed from another state. Our single, cheap $20 cell phone is only used as an emergency backup (used it twice in the last year). Haven't had a land line installed for 2 years now.

Technology marches on....

 

[AndrewW]

Actually, depending on who you trust to believe in, 40 to 60 % of familes no longer have a land line phone. They just have cell phone.

Right, a lot don't know but for those that do they have the advantage in getting the last word in.

 

[AndrewW]

And we use MagicJack over a radio-based ISP feed from another state. Our single, cheap $20 cell phone is only used as an emergency backup (used it twice in the last year). Haven't had a land line installed for 2 years now.

Technology marches on....

In that case it would be dependent on the size of your UPS...

 

[Greg Smith]

Why does she need to go to a shop to buy clothes?

Not wanting to get personal ... but, are you married?

Nope. :lol:

To clarify, she appears to go into a physical store in order to select her clothes from a screen. Why? When she could just as eaily have done so on her phone/table/refrigirator/dashboard/bus stop.

 

[rust]

To clarify, she appears to go into a physical store in order to select her clothes from a screen. Why? When she could just as eaily have done so on her phone/table/refrigirator/dashboard/bus stop.

Because the feel of the clothes is just as important as the look, and be-
cause the shop clerk telling her that she looks great in her new clothes
is almost as important as the clothes themselves. :wink:

 

[Greg Smith]

I understand that is important. But we don't see her do that. She appears to go into a store then select her cardigan using a screen.

She goes into the store and goes straight to a screen and selects 'Browse'.
She is in the store but needs a terminal to browse the store!

 

[rust]

She is in the store but needs a terminal to browse the store!

I agree that this is strange, no woman I know would do that, they would
want to walk around and touch the clothes. :shock:

 

[BP]

Actually that is hardly surprising - irrational of course, but then there are plenty of examples that exist today where things are done a certain way just because that is the way society did it historically...

 

[FreeTrav]

Actually that is hardly surprising - irrational of course, but then there are plenty of examples that exist today where things are done a certain way just because that is the way society did it historically...

There's just something about sitting there all comfy wrapped in a quilt and holding a real book, complete with the sound of pages turning and the feel of real paper, that an e-book just can't replace...

 

[carandol]

I can't help thinking its a world totally un-navigable by the blind. But maybe they've all got optical brain implants by then.

 

[Vile]

There's just something about sitting there all comfy wrapped in a quilt and holding a real book, complete with the sound of pages turning and the feel of real paper, that an e-book just can't replace...

True, but the patterns of behaviour that allow us the leisure to sit down wrapped up in a quilt reading a real book are changing. I live in a part of the world where new technology use is telegraphed before it hits much of the world, and in the past year I have seen electronic readers of one form or other (kindles, tablets, or just mobile phones) replace paper books almost entirely - except for recent arrivals from the West who still have a few paperbacks in their luggage. Convenience will always beat nostalgia, in the end, even thoroughly justifiable nostalgia, and you can't get more convenient than having all your reading material in your pocket at all times.

I don't think that clip is at all unrealistic. If anything, I think it's a little conservative in the way it assumes the technology won't really affect the way we live.