What is technology? This is question that myself and Lee were discussing
not more than 30 minutes ago. It always seems that as it gets past 12
in the evening, my conversations go one of three ways; depths of comedy
despair, revealing personal secrets or discussing the wider issues at
large. Tonight, it was door number three.
The basic discussion was whether that after a technology, the example
used was the telephone, has been around for so long, does it therefore
cease to be technology as such? My standing was no, technology is always
technology no matter how long it has been around. Lee took the opinion
that after a certain period of time, something could no longer be 'technology'.
We got onto this topic after I claimed that nearly everyone in UK is affected
directly by technology every day of their lives. Unless they are homeless
or have no electricity or phone line, everyone in the UK comes into direct
contact with technology every day. As time increases, the amount of technology
that people access directly each day will also increase. For people in
the last years of their lives, this increase will be small. For those
who are progressing into adolescent, the increase will be massive.
So what does this all mean? At the moment, very little. Over time, it
means that technology such as email, IM and the web will become as ubiquitous
as the telephone and the television are today. It also means that we will
be closer to a personal goal of mine; to have access to information anywhere,
anytime and anyhow. Whether you are sitting on the beach, at home with
your feet up or at the office, you should be able to access the same data,
on-demand and on any device.
This 'universal data' ideal is possible now, but not without a massive
change to existing systems and with limitations such as cost and speed
of access. Given time, research and allowing for people's perception of
technology to change, universal data should be with us in time for the
start of 2010, which is still nearly eight years away.
