•L.1.F.3.•MeMe•E-Zine•

[19]. We, Remote Controls

At the beginning of summer, 1979 I was 11 years old, fresh out of school and ready to begin the annual summer vacation ritual with my Dad in Durham, NC. After the usual four hour journey by bus had finally deposited us (my younger sister and I) at the bus depot, and Dad had secured the two of us, we were at last in the familiar surroundings of our birthright and all was right for the commencement of the yearly summer escape. Having stowed our luggage and the remains of our bag lunches, Kellie (my sister) and I settled in front of the TV in the living room for a relaxing communing session with Scooby Doo, Jabber Jaws, the Wild Bunch and other familiar cartoon companions while Dad disappeared into the kitchen to prepare a proper dinner for his road weary offspring.

So there we sat, giggling over the antics of our favorite paranoid canine, playing grab ass and cutting up when Shaggy and Scoob and the gang were abruptly supplanted on the TV screen by a hated news update of the local football clubs latest televised exploits. Oh no! Where did our entertainment go? What devious gods of TV land would rob two innocent kids of their cartoon delights? But before we could do much more than look at each other in confusion, Shaggy was running from the ghost monsters again and all was right with in the world of TV addicted preteens again... for a moment... Until the scene mysteriously changed to Walter Cronkite saying, "...And that's the way it is..." followed by some stupid news reel or another, rendering Kellie and I once again speechless with confusion and chagrin. And then Scooby was back in a flash, gobbling Scooby snacks in the back of the Mystery Machine while Shaggy gorged on massive sandwiches with comic gluttony which was immediately replaced by a commercial advertising toilet paper? Then a prime time soap opera complete with yucky smooching scenes becomes a late breaking basket ball game then a Coca Cola ad followed by another news bulletin and then static, white noise crackling out of the TV's glowing, blind eye. We were all ready to go find Dad and tell him that the TV was broken when we turned to find him standing at the door to the kitchen with a little black box in his hand.

That was the first time my sister and I had ever seen a remote control. The remote control is a very good example of the type of technology that has developed into the massive explosion of user friendly devices that have so profoundly changed human communications across the planet.

In the current age of social networks, instantaneous communications across broad band connections and the advent of ubiquitous internet interactivity, the concept of the remote control is fast becoming integral in everything. Cell phones, laptops, PDAs, E-Readers, Gaming Consoles and GPS devices allow people access to information anywhere and at any time.

People themselves are effectively becoming the remote control of the modern day, able to surf the internet via a vast variety of convenient means. Where needing to make an emergency phone call in 1975 entailed the trial of locating a working land line, in the modern day chances are someone will have a digital phone handy if you don't have one yourself. Music, movies, TV shows, digital radio and video games, which were at one time restricted to "watch at home" or "go to expensive and/or inconveniently located venues" are all available at the touch of a button, right from the handiness of many coat pockets. As technology continues to develop at an exponential rate soon we begin seeing a remarkable disappearance of these "middle man" devices as the internet itself becomes a more inclusive and accessible entity.

As such innovative concepts as "Ubiquitous Networks" and "The Semantic Web" begin to find their inevitable emergences in the global social scene, the use of cell phones, laptop computers and other forms of convenient modern access to the world wide web may actually become less necessary as people might be able to simply access the internet via voice command from anywhere and whenever necessary...

Imagine a very probable future when, to call a friend, instead of having to remember where in the world you left your cell phone this time, you might be able to simply blink your eyes, activating the micro circuitry in your contact lenses and tell the internet, "Call Johnny" and a real time, 3D image of your friend might pop up in your personal HUD (Heads Up Display) when Johnny answers your call via the Semantic Web. "Hey you!" Johnny might exclaim, "I was just thinking about you!" Perhaps you were supposed to meet Johnny half an hour ago but need directions to his exact location because you've lost your way? No problem! Simply blink again and tell the internet,

"I need to find Johnny at 456 Brighton Street..." and your amazing HUD could simply pop up a handy stream of helpful holographic arrows to point you in the right direction! But, oh no! That swank new restaurant you were looking forward to dining at with your best buddy Johnny has just released an internet bulletin announcing it had to be shut down today because of a failed health inspection! What in the world can you do? Again, not even an issue! Simply blink Johnny back on the line and, after a quick reassessment of the situation, you can conference call another likely dining location nearby, squeeze in a lucky last second reservation, land a great seat by the window, order your meal in advance and even go ahead and pay for the whole experience three blocks from where you are destined to meet Johnny and go to brunch in less than five minutes (according to the nifty countdown display visible in your HUD)!

So there you have it! Yesterday's era of getting up from the couch to change the channel has evolved into the modern era of the useful devices that are essentially remote controls themselves. Therefore, as said devices become smaller and more convenient to use via the exponentially advancing development of tech, the future of technological tools might soon see certain transcendence in form, becoming integral parts of every day convenience in many human lives...

Thus transforming the people who use the emerging, ubiquitous technology of the near future into the remote controls, themselves!