Friday 6 July 2012

The Future Is Now


I was sitting in the train, with my labtop on my lap. I was watching the film "I, Robot"[1] with Will Smith (to wit[2], Will Smith was the actor in the film, he wasn't sitting next to me watching. (And we wonder why computers haven't learned human speech yet.)) It's extremely loosely based on Isaac Asimov's[3] stories.

There was this scene, where he walks up to a house, flashes his Police Detective Badge in front of a Scanner, and the door opens and a voice welcomes him to the house. It was really awesome, with flashy laserlights scanning the badge, the badge lighting up, and everything.

Well, I closed the labtop, got off the train and upon exiting the station held my wallet against the wallscanner. The wallscanner did *bleep*, indicated the cost of the traintrip and what my remaining balance was, and I went merrily on my way.

Then what I just did struck me.

It leaves me with only one question...

Where are we going?

P.S. And when did Science Fiction stop having original ideas?

References

[1] I, Robot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot_%28film%29
[2] to wit
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-wit1.htm
[3] Isaac Asimov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov