Confessions of a part-time girl

I've seen the future
3:38 p.m. -- 2008-10-04

At times, it has been my job to study trends and predict where they are likely to lead us. Typically, the trends in question are technological, but the results can be social, business-related or ecological. Whatever. It�s important to understand where technology is heading, so you don�t design a dinosaur. It takes seven years or more to design and build some the things I�ve worked on, by which time the electronics you specified on day one are going to look more than a little antiquated. So instead, we assume that something with the capabilities we�re going to need will have turned up by the time we�re ready to fit the fiddly bits.

So: I have a history of crystal ball gazing. Cathode Ray Tube gazing, anyway. I still do this; I can�t help it. I�m just doing it for free now. (Sigh.) Still, let�s have a go.

Cameras.

In 1991, Kodak offered the public its first digital camera. A snip at just $13,000, the DCS-100 boasted a whopping 1.3 megapixels. You had to wear a storage device and battery pack in a special shoulder bag, connected to the beast via an umbilical cord... awesome in all the worst ways.

Nowadays, the �entry level� for digital photography appears to be around the eight megapixel mark. (Not that pixels mean anything, when the sensors are located behind shitty Chinese-made optics, but don�t get me started on my pet hate...) Anyway, things have moved on a long way. In fact, rather too far. Unless you feel the need to have one of your photos made into a bedspread, you don�t need a resolution of eight megapixels. (Nor fourteen, if you�re buying �semi-pro� gear.) Hell, it isn�t uncommon to find five megapixels on a phone. In fact, on one of last year�s phones that nobody wants to use anymore.

35mm film, of course, has gone the way of vinyl records, and ricketts.

Functional (well, made by Praktica, so... just barely) digital cameras can now be bought on the high street for thirty quid. In fact, the Chav-tastic PC World has (an awful) one for less than twenty...

Where does this kind of progress lead?

A logical extrapolation is that within ten years there will be tiny, free, digital cameras. It happened first with pocket calculators, and it seems to happen with every kind of electronic device. Those of our friends who are having babies at the moment will see those kids getting miniature digital cameras in with their breakfast cereal. Not great cameras... but functional freebies. A couple of megapixels maybe. I imagine that they will consist of one application-specific integrated circuit that does everything; no moving parts and virtually no other manufacturing required. (This will be a funny-looking silicon chip: being self-contained it won�t need all the legs that you see on present-day chips. It�ll probably only have four connectors. Being almost all-in-one, this product won�t suffer the present-day problems of soldering.) It�ll charge itself on ambient power, feeding a super-capacitor, so it can run almost forever. There will be enough spintronic storage capacity to record hours of video, maybe with a motion sensor that allows it to ignore the boring bits where nothing happens. I imagine there will be built-in wireless linking with the computers of the day; less parts to make... less cost!

And I expect it will be about the size of a baked bean. Materials cost money; miniaturisation is a cost-cutting measure.

What are you going to do with a fantastic camera like that, if you�re a kid? I mean once you�ve done the wholesome things like attaching it to the cat�s collar to see what she gets up to while you�re at school, and flying it around on a paper aeroplane, just because?

You�re going to hide it in your parents� bedroom, in the hope of filming them making the �beast with two backs�.*

You just would.

Kids are going to need a lot of counselling to get over that one. Especially when the video that they record doesn�t show mum and dad getting it on; instead, it shows dad getting mum�s underwear on.

The future isn�t great for the person with something to hide.

On the �plus� side, we�ll all be using personal life recorders, all the time, based on a slightly more expensive version of the same technology. That pair of glasses with a built-in video camera, in �Mission Impossible�**? Already in existence, several years ago. Yours for four hundred dollars (if you want to look like Joe 90).

In the future, everywhere you go, your ring, your wristwatch, your tie pin or your buttons will be able to record what happens... if you want. Involved in a road accident? You�ll have instant evidence. Ditto for that discussion where your landlord promised to fix the roof... or when that salesman alleged that the Pontiac Sunfire was a �good car�. Sexual harassment... mugging... shoplifting... all a lot harder to get away with in a future where low-cost cameras are sprinkled evyerwhere. You�re going to have to watch what you say in the future, though.

I�m not sure that this particular technology will lead to a greater quality of life... but I do think it�s highly likely to arrive.

And in fashion news, I predict that the veil is going to make a big comeback. Capiche?

* That�s not me being rude. It�s in Shakespeare. See �Othello�.

** A truly crap film. Blame it on Tom Cruise. Blame it on $ci�nto�og�.

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