Inchoate Ascendant™: July 6, 2012.

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July 6, 2012

Now Here, The Future

"The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet." -- William Gibson (purportedly)

I watched a video that was three years old now and a follow up to a slightly earlier video by maybe another year--could be less. In this video, equipment that is out of stock, and no doubt out of date by this hour's standards, was put together to do some amazing things that go beyond the amazing things the original video did even longer ago. This custom, jury-rigged system, with its custom open software does things that make your best laptops, phones, and tablets look downright archaic--though admittedly a phone was likely running the software, but at this point it could be one of those cheap tiny computers that fit in your shirt pocket. I mean, there are new phones just on the market that make my big computer that was almost bleeding edge a while ago look absolutely weak. So a computer half the size of your phone not running it's own power-sucking display will fly along with good battery life.

It doesn't actually matter what this homemade device and software suite does, though you may see it in this month's TechStop™, Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology (video 13:51). It only matters that it is futuristic compared to what I can go find in a store, but yet it was made out of common parts. It matters too that it can still do those amazing things on those same out of date parts if you still had them lying around in working condition--and will do it on new equipment if you know what you are doing with the software. The amazing parts of what it can do won't improve until those on the shelf items become amazing themselves, as well as when there is another leap forward in what the Internet is allowed to do, which both are likely already doing so in different people's labs right now. This scenario and others like it play out all the time and will continue to do so. Waiting for these to hopefully come to everybody else is the hard part.

Music: Anything, Anything by Dramarama.