The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed

It's an odd feeling when your life could be a setting for a William Gibson sci-fi novel. This morning I finished the code for the Lego UAV that navigates using a Bluetooth GPS receiver (the world's second Lego GPS bot, I think). This afternoon, we went to beach with the kids and I started Gibson's latest, Spook Country, which he's said is set in a present that represents the arrival of the future predicted in his previous books.

• On page one, the bleeding edge of the present is illustrated by a Lego robot.
• On page two, the protagonist's future-arrived credentials are that she writes for Node, a "European version of Wired."
• Later on page two, we learn that the Lego robot is carrying a GPS sensor.

Given that the editor of Wired created the world's second GPS-enabled Lego robot on the very morning he read that, I'd say that Gibson's grasp of the present is impeccable.

Comments

[Rex Hammock]

Having read the book and knowing what's coming up in future chapters, I hope the similarities stop there. ; )

[Maria]

Seems that I am finding that the "future is now" more and more lately. Am I just reading older books? Or is technology accelerating?

[Julian Bond]

Will somebody please build the head up display, augmented reality sunglasses from Spook Country and Halting State. The convergence of small cheap LCDs, GPS, mobile cams and ubiquitous wifi/3G should have made it possible by now.

Come on Oakley. That's what we want. Not some insanely expensive, insanely pathetic MP3 shades.

[Ehsan Honary]

A few days ago I wrote a blog page about robotics. At the end I reviewed the article and I thought I might have included too many examples involving Lego robots. As someone who was making Lego robots ages ago, I found Chris's post extremely amusing. Perhaps I shouldn't change my article after all. ;-)

Now, let's head to the bookshop to get Gibson's book. I am intrigued.

[Derek Tumolo]

Great post. I've loved reading everything you put up, and I just wanted to say thanks.

[Doug Stewart]

As the internet matures, the perspective may shift from "what is free" to "what is not free". The fact is, the marginal cost of setting up and running a site, except for the most complicated (e.g. Amazon) is becoming so low that it is no longer a factor. Consequently, while a traditional business (with staff to pay and premises to rent) needs a substantial income to be viable, with an internet business we are in the position that ANY revenue is profit.

As an example, my main business is a site that sells classified advertisements. I can make money from any of 4 sources:
- The people placing the advertisements, or
- The people paying to see the advertisements (in my niche market, this is possible, although in most advertising markets it isn't), or
- Commission from sales for related products, or
- Direct sales of related products

Each of these 4 sources of revenue corresponds to a group of people. So I could, if neccessary, provide a free service to 3 of these 4 groups and still make a profit. Of course, if I charge more than one group, I make a bigger profit.

The point is that although a hobby site can be completely free, even a business site can be free to all but one group.

[Irene]

Idoru seemed unlikely when I first read it. Now I realize that for years people have been falling in love with the screen images based on human actors. Why not fall in love with an image not based on a human?

[Chris Grayson]

This first link is for Julian Bond, 3rd post from the top.
Here is an article you may enjoy:

GigantiCo - Virtual Reality Part 1
http://tinyurl.com/ynk7da

And these two Google videos are for Chris. You may have alrady seen this guy. He's a Canadian fellow who has attached cameras to a model airplane and feeds the video to a head mounted display. There's your home UAV with real-time VR.

http://tinyurl.com/2hl8w5

http://tinyurl.com/yplwkz

cheers,
Chris Grayson
http://GigantiCo.squarespace.com

[kabin]

thanks...
Kabin
Konteyner

[matériel informatique]

First i would to say you thanks for sharing such an interesting article with us, i really like this article.. I really like this article for the future planning.. Gr8 post, keep posting..