A recent feature by Jeff Madrick in the New York Review of Books threw some cold water (in the form of statistics) on the baby we call the Information Age. Madrick claims, "There may be a computer revolution, but it has not yet transformed the economy to the extent the visionaries have promised, and in my view there are reasons to wonder whether it ever will."
His justification for this claim, of course, is carefully argued, closely reasoned, and sprinkled with such phrases as, "The recent 2.25 percent rise in productivity is not nearly enough to raise productivity growth above the average of 1 percent growth per year since 1973." This sort of thing puts me to sleep immediately. Oh, there's also a bar graph.
But he also says things like "Doubts come quickly to mind, prodded by the largely barren commercial results of the Internet so far." Not to mention: "Some analysts believe that the enormous power of computers is often superfluous." And this kicker: "Some observers contend that managers often underestimate the costs and downtime involved in educating employees, managing more complex technologies, and constantly fixing and updating them."
If I were to hazard a guess myself, I'd say that the reason productivity hasn't increased is that we're spending most of our work time either playing Quake, doing searches for our names on the Internet, or rebooting. I'm no expert, but I'd say we also waste a lot of time reformatting, converting, installing, reinstalling, compressing, decompressing, and trying to view MPEG files without the proper plug-in. But there may be other, more sinister forces at work.
The New Republic, yet another bastion of musty old media, featured a column last March by Katherine Pfleger, who claimed, "Airport metal detectors wail at my approach. Digital watches mysteriously malfunction when strapped to my wrist. Computers freeze at my touch." She concluded, "The problem must be me."
"In search of validation," she contacted NASA only to be told by a spokesman, "You've probably got a problem with your electromagnetic field." He suggested that she may be a "human environmental contaminant."
But if computers do have an allergic reaction to a human presence, what does that tell us about computers? Well, Jack Shulman of the American Computer Company claims that the first transistor (made 50 years ago at Bell Labs), which led to the development of computers as we know them today, may have been reverse-engineered from alien technology. He also claims to possess the means to build a "transcapacitor." According to UFO Magazine (which ought to know), the transcapacitor stores "vast amounts of data while consuming very little energy." His company plans to "manufacture a 90GB hard drive from the transcapacitor by late 1999 or 2000." Their speculation is that "clusters of transcapacitors may have served as a neural network in the alien computer from Roswell."
Makes sense to me. Frankly, I don't see any other explanation.
But what are we doing to fight back? Well, I found a few ideas in the April issue of Wired. In article entitled "Dress Code," author Thomas Bass suggested that the next wave of computing might be in "wearables," that is, head-mounted VGA displays, AR headsets, LCD glasses, midriff-mounted Pentiums, PC pinkie rings, and motherboards that fit in your hand.
These sound like devices James Bond or Batman might use, but the pictures accompanying the article made them look more like Borg--you remember Jean-Luc Picard's archenemy? The author even (approvingly!) calls the wearers of wearables Borg in the article! At a conference, he notes: "One adventuresome Borg, who prefers to get his output through a miniature cathode-ray tube, is packing 6,000 volts on his head."
Apparently this new movement is designed to "augment" reality. If you're a mechanic working on a jet plane, say, a heads-up display in your hard-hat could give you a complete wiring diagram laid on top of the work in front of you.
Eventually, you'll be able to superimpose "pictures, graffiti, music" on top of the seen world. Steve Mann of Media Lab (the Borg who was "packing 6,000 volts") also calls this "mediated reality." He predicts that "intelligent" eyeglasses of the future will "allow us to change our sampling rate at will" and to "observe things that are normally unseeable, such as lettering on spinning automobile tires."
I can't see myself jumping up and down, especially with five pounds of gear (and packing 6,000 volts) on my head, shouting, "Wow! It says 'Goodyear!'" But I guess it's one of those Computer Revolution things: If it can be done, it should be done.
On the other hand, maybe these are tentative attempts to become one with our computers. If they won't become more human, we'll become more alien. As some old musty media type once said, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
Ian Shoales's brain contains over 100GB of RAM; access, however, has been denied.
He passes for human in San Francisco and reads email sent to mkessler@ix.netcom.