Monday 12 March 2018

Digital Tech And The Eye Of The Storm



"Technology is a word that describes something that doesn’t work yet." 
~ Douglas Adams

When technology matures it disappears - we don't notice it and we take it for granted ... development of mature technologies slows and all becomes calm if not stagnant. In the technology doldrums we chase every bit of wind looking for movement. 

Its 2018 and we have been in the technology doldrums many years ... if not all through the 2010s. Smartphones have matured and development has all but stagnated and we get excited about tiny incremental changes. In technology in general we get excited about every breath of wind from 3D printing, virtual reality and smart gadgets but technology is not going anywhere fast at the moment ... what movement there is comes from the wind of our own breath.

We've been here before of course ... the PC matured and peaked around the turn of the century - the pace of change slowed to a crawl, they became commodities ... costs dropped and they all became basically the same.  

While differences create the disturbance of a storm revolution trends towards a stable centre ... coriolis spin creates the eye of the storm and gravity creates the black hole. Sunk investments and the monopolistic practices of big business are the gravitational forces and spin effects that create the eye of the storm and the black holes that suck everything in to the doldrums and sink like ships in the Bermuda triangle. 

While the eye of a hurricane may be calm the damage occurs further out and when it reaches landfall ... the wider effects of new technology are felt when it becomes stable and mainstream and are often unanticipated. Just look at how the motor car has changed our environment and the way we live and today just look a how smartphones and social media are changing the way we live our lives and the possible effects they are having on democracy and the fabric of our society.

Storms eventually blow out but new ones form from deep undercurrents that storm chasers only discover when the winds become obvious. The winds from smart gadgets, the Internet Of Things and wearable tech keep storm chasers busy but deep down powerful undercurrents are forming to energise one potentially apocalyptic technology storm. The undercurrents of artificial intelligence and quantum computing alone are enough to create a super storm but together could become apocalyptic creating an eye of the storm like no other ...this is the singularity!





4 comments:

Anonymous said...

With havin so much content do you ever run into any
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unique content I've either written myself or outsourced but it seems a lot of it is popping it up all over the internet without my authorization. Do you know any solutions to
help prevent content from being stolen? I'd really appreciate it.

Martin King said...

The ideas for the blog pop into my head and I get on and just write them .... I do some research to get my facts right and credit sources with links.

I'm not worried about people using my blog posts and ideas ... in fact I quite like that - I'm not looking to get any credit for any of this .... just looking to share freely the ideas that come to me.

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Martin King said...

Hi Anonymous,
Thanks for the offer to write for my blog.
The blog is my personal musings so I'd sooner just write it myself but I am of course very happy to have input and dialogue in the comments.

Why not mention a link to your blog in the comments - I'd like to read it.