Technology is the future

There was a time when to make a phone call I had to go out of the house and head towards the telephone box in the street. I had to put some money into the box once the call was connected. These days we have a phone in the pocket. Not only is it a phone, but it is a computer too. I so wish I could have had technology that is ubiquitous now when I was a young fella. It is being able to look back like this that makes me feel grateful for the lovely tech toys we have a to use now. I sometimes think that the digital natives growing up now just take it all for granted and don’t see the amazing possibilities that might grow from the expansion of technological devices into all parts of our lives.

I want to have home automation making my life easy. It should be simplicity itself to program all sorts of things to happen based on events such arriving back at home. The TVs should turn on and know what channels we want to watch. Or the house should know that arriving back at home on a Friday evening and no parties have been scheduled for later that what is needed is soothing music, a meal ready to be heated and presented to us and for those inclined, a glass of wine to go with it. Not only that, but calls will be scanned so that only the important ones get through and the whole system half programs itself by learning what we do on previous times that were similar. What about if the system can also ask it it is not sure which things should be set up. Do you remember the same when Marty gets home in the second of the ‘Back to the Future’ movies where he comes in and tells the house computer system to turn on a whole range of channels on the wall that was the TV screen.

Intelligent home security

Keys will be a thing of the past and we will get into the house with an RFID chip that we carry or better still it will use biometrics like a fingerprint. Just put the finger anywhere on the handle and the door is unlocked. We could have sos signals so that someone could not force us to open the door. Some sort of two or three factor identification. Something like you have to be carrying your smart phone as well as putting the finger in the right place. Less intrusive possibilities would be the system scanning the way we walked to the door. Or hi-resolution cameras being able to scan eyes to make the identification. I’m sure that people in the security businesses could come up with something that would make all this happen in the most unobtrusive way possible.

Goodbye paper

I’m am taking a flight today and it was still necessary for me to print out bits of paper. Can you believe it? I should have been able to show the barcode on the iPhone or even just use NFC like happens with Apple Pay. Passports should be digital too. This has started to happen in places and nearly worked when I went to the cinema last time. I had to pass my phone to the woman cashier to get the bar code scanned. They should have had a scanner that let me bypass the queue because I had already paid. One step at a time. It was the first weekend of that system being in place. Next month the kinks could have been worked out.

Goodbye to keyboards

I am typing this on the iPad right now and I usually prefer to dictate. Trouble is that I am on an aeroplane and other passengers might complain if I am talking to my computer. If everyone was doing it and using headphones it could work out. It would be a terrible racket for anyone not doing the same though. Perhaps this is a possibility in a classroom where many students are doing that sort of work. It would mean that for that a session it would be lone endeavour and possibly non collaborative. Unless students were in a virtual room and connected to other people in the outside world as well as with others in the class.

Policing the technology use in a classroom

My wife is a teacher and would see the problem being that she could not trust the students to just do the work. They would be distracted by hitting on Facebook or other social networks. The answer is not to ban this sort of work using a Bring your own devices scenario, but to require that’d help Devices be used and make it all digitally measurable. At regular intervals the assignment would have to be sent to the teacher. Woe betide any student not handing in the work. There could be spot checks where If someone was connected to the social network for too long they would have an automatic call for submission of the work. Why does the work have to be a pile of writing though? It could be an audio presentation, a video presentation and a combination of any number of innovative ways to show what has been learned. More challenging and probably more effective for learning as well as more fun.

We are on the cusp and the future looks bright

It seems that there are so many new things coming now it is taking some working out as to which are good innovations that will become part of our lives. There are schools that have a one to one policy for iPads and all of the students are producing amazing work and they are getting the best out of digital. it is all about the apps for iPads. Then there are the exam systems which are still entrenched in the ways of old education practices. we also have geeks that are getting their electric light bulbs to be Wi-Fi enabled along with their fridges and other devices within the house. You can already buy doorlocks which will unlock when you are near to them with your smart phone. Even locks for bicycles that work in the same way and will tell you if somebody is stealing it. GPS will even tell us where they have taken it so that we can set the Police upon them.