Friday, July 3, 2009

The Future Is Already Here

This Economist article on flying cars--apparently, they're closer to reality than you might think--got me thinking about the future.

Take someone from 50 years ago into today. Show him your iPhone, with GPS, Google Maps, and all sorts of apps, to say nothing of the internet and email. Buy some books online with your credit card and have them delivered, or buy them on your Kindle. Put on your music collection, which contains a good chunk of the world's musical output over the last thirty years in something smaller than your cell phone--which is revolutionary enough as it is. Check out some TV shows, movies, and YouTube clips. Play some X-Box, or use your Netflix account to stream some video on your flat screen TV. Type up something on your blog, or work a spreadsheet. Use wikipedia or Google.

None of these things existed fifty years ago. Any person from back then, seeing this stuff, would be amazed and convinced that the future has arrived. Except for the flying cars. So let's get on that, people.

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