I saw a couple of neat sites on the Web the other day that got me thinking. The Internet has the potential to really change the way we live and an interesting idea that has been percolating in the back of my brain ever since I read I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, when I was a kid got stirred up when I saw these neat Web sites.
January 1998
The first site (a netcam thing, you know the type) consists of a camera pointed at an aquarium sitting in some dork's lab somewhere. The camera automatically let's you check out what's happening in the aquarium over the Internet. No big deal - there are thousands of similar sites out there. Very old news. Zillions of people posting things like this is exactly what makes it so hard to find things the Internet and is also exactly the kind of thing that makes the Internet so weird and interesting.
The next Web site I liked also features a Web camera. This camera takes pictures of the surf at Point Mugu every 15 minutes. This is very useful for surfer dudes that want to check and see what the surf's like before waxing up their board. They can just fire up their computer, log on to the Internet, and have a look at the surf conditions. You've probably heard of similar cameras pointing at coffee machines, parking lots, maternity wards, baby cribs, etc.
So how am I going to tie these silly Web sites into anything useful? Just hang on a little longer. There are other Web sites that have detailed maps of large cities and other interesting locations. You can zoom in on a particular area you're interested in, click on it, and a photograph of that area is displayed. Now this raises some possibilities. If this idea is taken to its logical conclusion and tied into some of the neat mapping programs and travel planning software that's available, you could get some really neat previews of trips you might like to take. Tie all this into satellite-based cameras in orbit and things get scary.
Now jump forward, oh, say 2 years. Imagine this map/photo idea has blossomed in ways that boggle the mind. When you click on the map you get the view from a live video camera (not just a photograph) actually located at the site on the map where you clicked. As your eyes move left and right across the computer screen, a sensor on your monitor tracks your eye movements and pans the camera at the remote site to match your eye movements so you can actually look around the remote area. This is do-able now but a bit on the slow side. Bandwidth is all that is lacking. The other pieces are already there to create exactly this type of application. Cameras would only be located at sites people are particularly interested in viewing. This could lead to on-line vacations. Mount a few cameras along the road to Hana in Maui or in the Grand Canyon, or on the back of a truck driving through Nepal and you would be able to do some interesting travel from your office chair. This would be sort of like video conferencing on steroids.
Now jump forward 5 years more, or maybe 10. Marry the on-line travel idea with holography. Throw away the computer monitor. Holography allows you to see things as if they were in the room with you. Dedicate a corner of your living room for a holography viewing area. You can walk around a holographic object and view it from all sides. Select a destination. Immerse yourself in the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef without getting wet.
Jump forward (or back) a few more years. Scrap the holography idea. Plug a parallel cable into the socket on the back of your neck (I really think the whole idea of virtual reality helmets sucks. I want to go right ahead and jack in directly). Maybe you won't even need a socket. Maybe you can just think: "C:/ > WIN, < enter >". In our fantasy future world, remote travel destination linkups are old stuff. Packaged Cyber Tours are still big money-makers and people are really telecommuting to work. You'll feel like you're really at the office with a bunch of other people that feel like they're at the office too but actually everybody'll be at home. Or somewhere better. Cyber sex will be happening big time. The two-way vibrating two-way joysticks that were popular after 2000 are a big yawn (ThrustMaster, indeed). You'll be able to jack into a pre-recorded, interactive cybersex session with any of your choice of cyber sex stars of the day. All you'll need is plenty of cyber money.
Now jump ahead a few more years. Humanity is dying out. World population is down to a few billion or so. Nobody has any need to travel anywhere anymore. Humans aren't reproducing because they never meet anybody to reproduce with - they never go anywhere and cyber sex satisfies most reproduction 'urges'. A gleam in daddy's eye leads only to a session with the ThrustMaster, a huge cyber bill, and no offspring. People get out of the habit of meeting other people in the flesh and feel uncomfortable in the presence of live humans. Robots satisfy most physical needs. The end of civilization as we know it looms.
Issac Asimov mentioned some of these ideas in I, Robot and I see the tools needed to actually make this scenario come true being developed surprisingly quickly right now. Where will it all end? Will we become a race that manifests itself only as blips of electrical pulses? Blipping around in endless cyber sex orgies? The mind boggles.
