A Brave New World

A co-worker forwarded me the video below yesterday, along with the message, "Think we will live to witness this?" Here were my thoughts when I opened the video:

1. Oh, I've seen this before. My assistant-superintendent ALSO forwarded it to me about six months ago.
2. Of course we'll live to see SOMETHING like this. I'm actually not that blown away by this video. The see through glass monitor doesn't exist yet (at least, not in any consumer-affordable store I've ever been in), but as far as the other technology goes, there's very little in this video that isn't already possible today, if you were willing to purchase a giant touch screen TV with Microsoft Surface technology built into it. The video is guessing at the evolution of software (i.e. the ease with which the dad transfers the Skype-like video call from his cell phone to the computer built into the kitchen counter) and counting on some things that don't exist yet (such as, to go back to my prior example, what kind of camera on the kitchen counter is capturing the kids for the grandma to see???), but overall, there's really not much new here. We're living in this world already, and these advancements are going to come incrementally, so that you're hardly aware of them. Isn't 2011 Skype pretty darned cool? Or Facebook? Or the Internet on your cell phone? It's all the stuff of science fiction movies when I was growing up!
3. I don't want work emails popping up on my mirror while I'm trying to get ready in the morning. I don't know if Corning was trying to get me excited about this new future or ticked off at them because in this future I can't even go into the bathroom to get away from work. Jennifer should have pretended she didn't get the message and had another hour to enjoy the morning!

(I can't see the video.)