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The direction of technology

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    The direction of technology

    When I was (much) younger, a telephone call to our relatives in the north of England involved dialling the operator and asking for a trunk call to whatever the number was. Trying to convince my teenage son -- someone who's never known anything other than picking up his mobile phone and pressing at most a few buttons to reach pretty much anywhere in the world -- is no easy feat. That televisions and stereos used to be designed into purpose built wooden furniture brought a similar blank look. There's nothing remotely remarkable about any of this, of course, technological development continues inexorably at an ever accelerating rate. Always has done and undoubtedly always will do. Where's it heading though, and what will it bring for us?

    Distant control of domestic appliances: hmmm, I'm not sure I'm very much on board with this one. I can understand the usefulness of being able to record a TV programme you'd forgotten about before leaving home, although with an increasing amount of content becoming readily available on the internet, even that will become debatable. Dishwashers, washing machines and anything else that requires manual loading, you can forget; they've all got delayed start timers in them.

    Automatic selection of electricity supply based on published spot prices is far more useful, though the obvious problem is what happens if everyone gets such a system.

    Personal health is an area where there is substantial room for development. Distant monitoring and even re-programming of implanted devices is perhaps at the far end of the spectrum. More likely is the increased use of medical machines in the home.

    Then there's the car, and I'm not sure I like all the possibilities that this opens up. On the plus side there's an increasing array of sensors, cameras and radars to help us in the forgotten arts of reversing and parking -- well, until we try to maintain them ourselves, that is. There's also no reason why cars could not be in contact with the manufacturer, sending engine and other parameters for diagnosis and development purposes, in the same manner that aeroplanes routinely are now.

    This could also happen. Governments agree on an international standard driving licence containing the owner's biometric details. Such a licence is required to start and run the car. A vast number of small communication stations are located throughout the country, built into e.g. street lights, traffic lights, or just anywhere along the road. As the car passes such a station, it automatically transmits car and driver details. Speeding fines now become a matter of course. The system can even warn the driver that he's going too fast, then notify the driver of the fine, or even limit the speed of the car. Stolen cars could be tracked as routine and, if necessary, disabled. Far fetched? Well, it would be built as part of a communication network, not a stand alone network, so it needn't be overly expensive. Would people be bothered that the authorities were effectively tracking their whereabouts, for at least some of the time? That's the bit that I'm baulking at, but I wonder. I suspect that few, if any, of us have modified our behaviour due to the vast array of CCTV cameras around us, or changed anything following Edward Snowden's revelations of what our governments are getting up to with our internet traffic. This may well be something we complain about at first but then quietly accept.

    The whole lot's buggered when the power fails or the software crashes, anyway, and it really has been a long time since I started a thread.

    #2
    The direction of technology

    Distant monitoring and even re-programming of implanted devices is perhaps at the far end of the spectrum.
    This is not far at all. Remote monitoring of implanted electronic devices is pretty much standard now and devices for 24-hr electronic remote monitoring for conditions like heart failure is catching on. If it can be shown to save the system money by reducing trips to the hospital or by improving the reaction time to sudden emergencies, doctors and patients will adopt it. If it's just information for information's sake, they won't.

    Remote reprogramming is also possible, but there are security and safety issues to be worked out. You wouldn't want to give a patient the ability to accidentally reprogram their pacemaker from their iPhone, for example.

    There aren't that many people who live so far away from their doctor that they can't see them in person to get regular software upgrades. Besides, the doctor can often learn a lot just by meeting with somebody face to face that they can't get remotely, so relying just on remote monitoring wouldn't be desirable for most people.

    "Wearables" and other personal monitoring gizmos like fitbit are helpful for fitness for some people are very hot right now, but they haven't been shown to make massive differences on health outcomes so far.

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      #3
      The direction of technology

      "In the Year 2000..."

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        #4
        The direction of technology

        There's also no reason why cars could not be in contact with the manufacturer, sending engine and other parameters for diagnosis and development purposes, in the same manner that aeroplanes routinely are now.
        This is already happening in, eg, Teslas.

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          #5
          The direction of technology

          Also, re: your dystopian scenario, absent the speed-limiting and automatic notification, you're almost describing the present situation in the UK.

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            #6
            The direction of technology

            Especially as they use it for average speed cameras etc. So no slowing down and speeding up to avoid the telltale flash.

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              #7
              The direction of technology

              I worry less about the direction of technology and more about the breed of sociopath that it seems to be encouraging. The number of businesses and business plans that seem to treat laws, regulations, taxes, privacy and other things that make society function as optional extras is immensely troubling.

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                #8
                The direction of technology

                Ginger Yellow wrote: Also, re: your dystopian scenario, absent the speed-limiting and automatic notification, you're almost describing the present situation in the UK.
                Yes, I'm familiar with ANPR. We have it in use over here as well, though as far as I'm aware only in mobile units and not fed by a fixed CCTV network. It's a limited technology though, and two way communication between vehicles and a network offers the potential for a vastly more powerful system, not just in deterring and punishing speeding automatically in real time or disabling a criminals' getaway car, but also in identifying accidents and traffic management more generally. These sort of things are done to some extent already but an integrated system can expand that capability enormously.

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