Monday, November 22, 2010

The next step

IT started with electricity. Then we started switching electricity to signal across large distances, and the telegraph was born. As our technological savvy increased we could modulate signals to transport voice and connected people in a much more immediate way than before.
Nowadays we manipulate electrons, light and airwaves to transport huge amounts of data for an array of purposes, many of which have brought people closer still in spite of time or distance. I can access the minds of legends past by looking up their works online. I can see and hear my parents across the Atlantic using voice over IP technology. There are virtual places where I can communicate with friends and acquaintances, and share news, thoughts, pictures and music with them.
I wonder what the next step is. What is more meta than a social networking tool built on top of the internet built on top of a lot of computer hardware, software and interconnections built on top of an unbelievable amount of basic infrastructure? What's the next layer on the technological cake here?
Because this cake is going to keep stacking up, and one day the internet will be as present-but-obsolete as is the telegraph system today, whose dits and dahs persevere in the form of ones and zeroes zipping around our networks, the basic switching principle remains intact. What technology will be fresh and 1.0 then? How close will it bring us?

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