It's
2015. Thirteen-year-old Kari Ross just got a PTV for her birthday, the
much-anticipated PC/TV convergence product. PTV comes with the
following hardware and software:
- a stereo headset with a built-in microphone
- a flip-up 3D screen that
clips onto her glasses
- a wireless trackpad that clips onto her belt
- a wireless webcam with a velcro wrist strap
- voice recognition software that 'learns' Kari's
pronunciation and vocabulary
- a folding wireless keyboard that fits in her backpack
- wi-fi internet access
- VoIP worldwide long-distance telephony
- subscriptions to her favourite television programs
- a vast library of downloadable PPV movies and free music
and books (including all her schoolbooks)
- a pocket-sized CPU/hard drive
- MC2, an integrated personal
content management, annotation,
social networking and publishing package
First thing in the morning, Kari's already videoconferencing with
friends while she gets ready for school, debating with them what she
should wear. She also has an IM window open and is dictating replies to
several messages and e-mails in her inbox. Her first two school
time-blocks are independent study, so she downloads the study materials
and completes the exercises and self-tests. Third time-block is a group
project on solar energy, so she walks over to friend Sarah's house,
five minutes away, where the group has agreed to meet for the parts of
the project that can't be done by video. Their project advisor checks
in by video and counsels them where to look for some of the data
they'll need. Kari stays at Sarah's for lunch, and they chat and swap
files, with each other and with friends they each have online.
After lunch Kari starts working on her co-op project -- she's learning
to custom-make clothes, using a cutting and sewing machine that is
operated by her computer, one of a variety of programmable machines
that her community centre, and even the local Starbucks, make available
to their members and customers. This particular machine adjusts the
pattern to the appropriate size, cuts and sews the material, and adds
embroidery. She needs some material for this, so she uses her GPS and
personal scheduling software to identify how to get it quickest. It
turns out that Chris is just across the street from the fabric store,
and he is scheduled to meet with girlfriend Sarah at her house in an
hour. She programs her scheduler accordingly and immediately gets a
request from Sarah's scheduler to bring over two folding chairs when
she comes. She confirms the request and Sarah, getting the message,
IM's a 'thank you'. She then places the order with the fabric store,
pays for it, and notifies the store that Chris is authorized to pick it
up for her, all online. She has a videoconference with the president of
Dionysis Designs, her co-op project sponsor. They talk about how an
entrepreneurial business like Dionysis is set up, and some of the
challenges the business has faced. Kari has already sold some of her
own custom-made clothes, and some of her own embroidery designs,
through her personal website.
MC2, which stands for Managing Content &
Communications, is the only software package Kari ever learned to use.
It has three 'modes', represented by a pencil cursor (for
document/message writing and annotation), a hand cursor (for saving,
sending, publishing and otherwise moving content from one place to
another), and a telephone cursor (for connecting with other people and
their content). She laughs in disbelief when her father tells her he
had to use 26 different, and incompatible, software programs to do the
things she does with MC2, which a friend
taught her to use in 15 minutes.
She dictates some information about the Gore-Tex jeans she made that
afternoon (convertible into shorts, and with the scanned and
computer-embroidered likeness of the owner on one 'cheek' and that of
the owner's sweetheart or friend on the other). She takes a photo of
the jeans with her webcam and uses MC2 to
move the article and the photo to her personal website -- today's 'blog
post' done (though Kari has never heard it called a blog -- it's just Kari's 'public'
space). She also moves the pattern and specs for the jeans to her
'shareable files' folder (along with the demo tracks from Chris' band),
and sends copies of the post and the file to her 'clothing designs'
mail group (which, she notes proudly, has been subscribed to by over
1000 people around the world).
Kari calls her generation 'Nomads'. To them, she says, home is just a
place to sleep. There is no need to be in any particular place to do
anything, and some of her friends are in her house (it has a nice-sized
meeting/party room) more than she is. She can't remember the last time
she actually sat in a classroom, and is astonished that some 'older'
people still drive to personal 'offices' -- what for? Ironically, some
of her best friends, and those with whom she spends the most time, she
has never met face-to-face. But she rarely needs either a car ride or
to take public transit -- her 'face-to-face' friends are within easy
walking distance, as is the community centre, the doctor, the great
organic vegetarian restaurant, Starbucks and the fitness centre. And
who would go to a movie theatre with such a limited selection and no 3D
vision? Anything you need to buy can be either downloaded, file-shared
or ordered online and delivered to your door. And when you actually have to go to a store, your webcam
lets others look over your shoulder and get you to pick up what they
need.
Evening comes, and Kari settles down with Chris ("we're just friends")
and Sarah, and side by side on their PTVs they watch six hours of a much-discussed
new comedy series, pausing for breaks, to chat with each other and with
online friends, and for a one-hour workout. "Let me get this straight
-- back in the '90s you had to wait a week to see each new episode,
watch commercials, and if it
wasn't on at a convenient time, you had to record it on tape?" (wild rolling of eyes)
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MADE IN CANADA
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