I have little time to discourse at present, and really hope to hear some opinions first.

Essentially, many people ignore the potentials of technology in favor of a very localized view of the world. "Here I am, television is a reality, machine chariots are a reality, setting foot on the all-too-corporeal ground of the heavenly spheres is a reality, and that's how life is." But it isn't, and it can be a great deal more.

It took thousands of years to develop the very core of human knowledge and civilization, mere hundreds to spread it and envelope the planet, and only decades to change, change, and change it again and again as it would befit the times. And times do change, if one would only stop to notice.

The pace of technology quickens, there is no denying that (even if you disagree with certain radical models). And the power of a man is amplified by the power of his machines. Anything interesting anyone has to note about where we're headed in the future? Either pure tech news or a discussion on the good vs. ill of our path. Because I am a very serious tech guy, and hope to work on a startling array of developments that will shape our lives in later times. But while I can get very excited about what I hope to do, I also fear for us if we manage to do wrong with it.

In case people aren't familiar with Ray Kurzweil's exceptionally optimistic view of the march of progress:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.html?flash=1

His latest work, The Singularity is Near, is very, very good and incredibly informative. I feel like he's missing a lot of socioeconomic and marketing factors in his figures; while technology goes right on ahead, it is the popular acceptance and spread of it that marks the real "advance" that it provides for us. The labs are decades ahead of our homes, and he doesn't really discuss how set back we could be due to popular ignorance or misunderstanding of technology.

However, there are essays, notes, and responses on that site that do seem to address that.

And something I read recently that got me thinkin':

http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn...rain-chips.html

That's the sort of work I want to do. Marry biology with electronics. A frightening prospect if one develops it far enough,.

Biology+electronics=cyborgs. That would be cool.

And I think that is the problem with many scientists. They can make the technology, but they can never understand how to make it economically feasible.

The big problem is the top-down corporate R&D scheme. Engineers are told what to make and just figure out how to make it, while the marketing folks figure out how to market it... and they're not worth the paper their bloated paychecks are printed on. Viable "killer app" design additions are not given to the product designers, who can't make additions themselves without going through a large product review process (if such a thing is even available to them).

The corporate model has a strength in the scope of its potential, but in most cases it becomes rather crippling. A perfectly reasonable product goes down the tubes because the marketing director wants to be Fellini with his black-and-white "clarity of essence!" commercials instead of actually doing something important.

NOTE: Not to demean you marketing people, you've had hits before. But the fumbling around I've seen in case studies in my engineering design class makes me cringe. Some of them seem to consult their Onion horoscopes before making some kind of decision.


...Anyway, that's not really the issue at hand. Public acceptance comes, eventually. Be it for one product or another, it is the concept of the product, the technology given, that will eventually prevail, and sooner rather than later. EROL and all the other AOL wannabes (and, thankfully, AOL itself) tanked, but the technology they wanted to sell, the internet, (access, more specifically) thrives.

As a PR major, I can say that just as an engineer speeds up technology, PR and marketing speeds up the acceptance of such technology. Morning-after pill, anyone?

I wish we humans could evolve as quickly as does our environment.