Could these shocks become true?

Almost everyone has talked about the progress of technology and what's more to come. According to an article, " 10 future shocks for the next 10 years, " there are 10 potential changes that will occur within technology.
First, the high cost power and space is going to force the IT world to look at cloud services. It's almost like we just dump requests to the machine and get results. Second, by 2018, the human/machine interface will be ubiquitous, with people walking around giving voice/whisper commands and using ear bud audio and an eyeglass display that superimposes a machine-enhanced view of the world on ordinary vision. Nobody will notice that half the population is cyborg, because we'll get there one small step at a time, as iPhone belt-clip holders give way to the iBeltBuckle, iGlasses and iEarRings. Third, you come home to do a little work on the computer, and when you turn it on, it boots up in just a few seconds with no issues. You open e-mail and it comes up without your having to wait. In fact, this new OS doesn't even have an hourglass icon! For the rest of the night, your computer does everything you ask it to do, without any waiting or errors. Fourth, a memex device will continuously capture all audio and video from your daily experiences and upload that content to the cloud, where it will recognize your tasks, interesting information, and reminders -all searchable. A summary of important content from your day will be available through your PDA automatically. Fifth, the smart phone evolving into the preferred instrument for constant connectivity, with voice interaction, facial recognition, location awareness, constant video and sound input, and multi touch screens. Sixth, By 2018, automation will have hit enough labor sectors that while the GDP will continue to grow, fewer and fewer people will receive that growth in the form of wages. This will drive either social collapse or the establishment of a no-apologies welfare state. Seventh, one day you'll be able to see a picture of something or take a picture of something, and load it into a search engine and have it scan the pic, search, and tell you what it is. Eighth, in the next 10 years, perfect governmental tracking and monitoring of each human being will become reality. Ninth, devices that are always receiving information and displaying it on low-draw screens in the cover of phones and portable computers will meet networks that are always available to make your interaction with the information world more like a flowing stream. Tenth, by 2018 we will use technology to remember and fortify social connections. You'll get together socially with a friend, geo-locate, take pictures, Twitter, make notes and videos, and so on, and it all gets automatically filed away.
While some of these shocks sound good the majority of these 1o future shocks, come as a shock. At times, it is hard to imagine how far we have come in technology already and will become even harder to imagine progress in the next years ahead. These shocks can almost be compared to the book"1984," and the movie "The Truman Show," where there is little or no privacy. Where would we go to be alone? How will we react when we know were being followed? This article reminds me of the video we watched in class called, "The Machine is Us/ing Us." This video showed the idea that with the use of the web and technology, we must consider our ethics but most importantly our privacy as an issue. Without privacy, there becomes an easy access to information and can be dangerous.
Overall, within the next couple of years the machine will be a big part of our lives. Technology will give us all the information we need. It will watch us and wait for us to use it for vital information. We have become a world based on CMC using electronic devices to communicate.

Technology= Friends?

I know that technology has come a long way from previous years, but I didn't realize how far it has come exactly until today. One of my friends had mentioned to me her troubles with her boyfriend and her relationship, and didn't know what to do about it. Before getting my advice, she gets on the computer, goes to Google, and looks up how to deal with a troubling relationship. I thought that that was a little absurd. Situations that we use to ask family members or friends, we are asking the computer. I was in shock that she would even begin to believe that the computer could help her relationship. Things like friendships and relationships I feel like we have to deal with personally and not through technology. Writing to a computer is not going to mend a broken heart or bring together a friendship. With all this said, she of course had things to say about it. While talking to me, she expressed her knowledge of a computer not being able to fix her relationship but help. She stated how people like her get on the computer for advice and some even write their experiences on the computer to help others. This I do agree on. Yes, I do believe that people write things that they've learned or experienced on the computer but I don't agree that situations close to the heart, should be dealt with by technology. Through this situation, I began to contemplate. I thought to myself, how our relationships we build with others are becoming affected. Its almost like computers are our friends. We go to them for information, count on them to be there every second of everyday, and miss them when were not near them. Which leads me to the question, who needs friends when you have technology?

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Response

In this Buffy episode, the writer was trying to convey the differences that have evolved between older and newer technology by comparing the characters. At the very beginning, a monster is let free out of a book because the computers scanned the spell. The monster is known to have a spell on people through his smooth lines and captivating words. Earlier in the episode, the monster is seen years ago killing off people with his personal words of love. Later in the episode, the monster stills captivates people with the same lines but with impersonal communication. In fact, he does this through a computer. Throughout the episode, we see the monster have a spell over one of the main characters through use of email. The main character becomes infactuated with lines written back and forth between her and the monster without even getting a glimspe of what he looks like, or even any perosnal communication. Another main character refers to reality as being virtual,he says "the only reality is virtual and the last two years more email has been sent than regular mail." In this episode, the writer is warning all of us who are consumed and infactuated by technology, that it can in fact take over us. We get this idea through the main character who becomes infactuated with the monster through email and by the guy who works at the library and believes that technolgy is ridiculous. He says everyone is manipulated by technology and that human interaction is now said to be absurb. In the beginning we immediately see that he is not in technology when he calls the t.v. the "idiot box". At the end, we see get a glimpse of why he doesn't like technology when he talks about the smell of books. He says, "books smell, computers have no context, doesn't last, if it shall, it should be smelly." The character longs for the touch, the smell, the personal feeling that computer can't offer. The main message is to not let computers take over us. At the beginning, we see the computers scan the book itself. Don't let them outsmart us.