The Quickening Todays Trends Tomorrows World by Art Bell
CHAPTER ONEThe Quickening
Today's Trends, Tomorrow'south World
Past Fine art Bell
Paper Chase PressTechnology Through infrared binoculars, Ishmael could meet the movements of several thousand Lebanese Hezbollah troops crossing the Golan Heights. This only confirmed the satellite photos he observed on the loftier resolution monitor strapped to his wrist. Effectually him, his men jittered in place every bit they waited for their commander'south decision. "So it has come up to this," Ishmael whispered. His orders were to strike offset. He relayed this to his men, who watched his troubled face over their personal monitors. "Launch, and may God be with the states."
Within minutes, several softball-sized bombs were launched. Through his binoculars, Ishmael gasped as he saw a bright flash and a deep, grumbling roar. The same men he had been watching accelerate a moment earlier now lit up, and for a split second, he could see through them similar looking through an x-ray. Their mankind evaporated with the force of the neutron bombs, so quickly that they became standing skeletons before aging to the ground in heaps. A pervasive silence stole over the land.
* * * Twelve year old Scott Atwood stood fascinated as a parade of gold prospectors and their pack mules trudged through talocrural joint deep mud in the streets of Nevada Urban center, California. The small town was bustling with activity and noise. All of a sudden, he heard gun fire from behind him. Two men were arguing and one shot the other. Scott felt his breath come more rapidly; this was getting a little also dangerous! He pointed his finger to a hulking black steam locomotive, leaving the gold rush of 1849, and instantly traveling back in time to late eighteenth century Europe. Here he learned just how the steam engine and early passenger trains had come most, a passenger for a few moments on the fashion to Scotland.
Scott was amazed at all that had happened in Europe and America. He came to appreciate more fully the technical innovations of the past, the courage of early American settlers, and the adventures of the miners in gold-crazy California. Sighing happily, he removed the virtual reality body suit and went out to see his friends for a game of baseball.
* * * What a please it is to sit down in front end of a computer screen and conversation with people all over the world. What fun it is to become engrossed in a three dimensional computer game for hours and hours. How wonderful it is to exist hooked up to a satellite television receiver organization that pipes in hundreds of games of your favorite sport. But technology is more than just entertainment.
In the past, advances in technology have served every bit the impetus for far-reaching modify; we are propelled forward, and our lives are changed forever. Technology is the difference between where nosotros are now and the path not taken. Not only is engineering an important example of how aspects of the Quickening overlap and touch each other, much like a patchwork quilt, just technology is the core of the Quickening.
The Power of War
When did all this loftier-powered knowledge really start to exert itself on the world? In fact, it was the twoscore years encompassing Earth Wars I and II that marked a quantum jump in scientific and technological developments; more advances were made in this brief period of history than in all the years of history to that signal.
Considering the drastic events of the time, perhaps it is non a surprise that the three most notable technologies--and arguably the about influential upon the time in which we are living--were those of the world's first rockets, computers, and atomic bombs. Without the world wars, technologies we accept for granted could accept taken much longer to materialize. Because of these wars, technologies came together simultaneously and complimented other concurrent technologies. In other words, things came together in a fashion like to three people starting at dissimilar places in a city and arriving at a destination at the same time.
Bombs Away
A nuclear bomb is the most ominous engineering in existence today. Ironic, isn't it? We created a threat which originally was intended to protect us, only because others accept acquired the technology, this threat hangs over the heads of every person in the world. Nuclear weaponry really had its start with the discovery of ten-rays in 1895. Quickly after that, radioactivity was found in uranium, and nuclear physics theory was well underway. All this science established the ground work for the atomic bomb.
Betwixt the two world wars, scientists discovered excitedly that they could separate atoms (which is nuclear fission). It dawned on them that such energy could be harnessed in two ways: to generate something positive similar electricity and to generate something destructive like an atomic flop.
Nether the orders of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the best nuclear physicists of the 1940s built the first diminutive bomb; it took about iii years and an exhaustive effort to produce two bombs, and of form, yous all know the purpose. World War Ii came to an abrupt end with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, the precursors to today'south nuclear weapons.
I of the ways in which America chose to use its nuclear free energy was in submarines, driven by nuclear turbine power. By 1957, these subs carried more than only navy men; they were equipped with nuclear tipped missiles called ICBMs, or intercontinental ballistic missiles. Guided by computers, the ICBM brought rocket and nuclear technology together, creating another reason for countries all over the world to glance worriedly at their coasts that before had seemed impenetrable.
Rocketing Into Space
Rockets were not only used for propelling bombs. Pioneering space is another instance of the Quickening: from the moment it was adamant that rockets should be to the fourth dimension that human walked on the moon, a mere thirty-vii years elapsed. In the meantime, of grade, nosotros have put space stations into orbit which have enhanced our telecommunications abilities, as well as our chapters for weather forecasts, mineralogical and geological surveys of the earth. Thus, the scientific discipline of rocketry is not an entirely negative i; we have progressed farther in our goal to communicate with the world speedily and conveniently.
The Arms Wrestle: America vs. Russia
From the ashes of the world wars, two distinct superpowers emerged: America and the Soviet Union. Each of usa applied our economic, geopolitical and technological dominance to create a checkmate known as the Cold War. Each state was particularly compelled to friction match each other in nuclear weaponry, adult quite naturally from the labors of the atomic bomb scientists.
This arms race is a strange, ironic reflection of some of humanity'due south most monumental achievements in engineering, and yet is the very thing that could spell doom for humanity. Yes, the former Soviets promised to dismantle their nuclear weapons, but what they really did was dismantle them and replace old technology with new. The onboard guidance systems of these missiles are more precise, and the missiles are faster with a longer range; this does not bode well for anyone in the world today. Farther, nosotros no longer accept just 1 nuclear enemy; dangerous countries with hot-headed, religiously fervent leaders such as Iran and Iraq have gleaned nuclear technology from the everyman bidder. Instead of less nuclear threat, there is more.
The human heed is virtually neglect-safed. We tin but worry about so much at once. Perchance that is why we are able to go to slumber each night without giving the possibility of nuclear exchange much thought. In the 1980s, I remember a moving-picture show called "The Day After," a gripping, horrific take on what the earth would exist like in the aftermath of nuclear war. The fearfulness level seemed intense then, but as humans, information technology is in our nature to push button things downwardly from our level of daily awareness. At present, more than than ever, we need to be enlightened of the inherent dangers of a world that all the same presents a nuclear threat, as far away as it may seem.
Information Limited
We live in an information age. Everywhere you go, the brightly flickering lights of televisions are seen, whether it's an airport, a sports bar, or someone plugged into a generator in the middle of the woods. Radio is another medium through which information is exchanged, and the equipment is following the trends of today and becoming more powerful in a smaller package. Information technology exists all around us: from the bar code reader at the grocery store to a greeting carte du jour maker at Authentication to a washer and dryer to a VCR that does everything merely launder the apparel. Undoubtedly, though, the central technological advance is the reckoner; in fact, a computer or estimator chip is backside every one of the technologies I just mentioned.
Did you know that a man named Charles Babbage actually attempted to introduce the calculator to an unwilling globe nearly 160 years agone? It was not until 1934 and across that computer engineering began to quicken and advance. First the Germans, then the British and finally the Americans developed a simple binary code computer--and as you lot can imagine, it took up a whole room with all its metal and cables! The late 1940s saw a motility into vacuum tubes, replaced in 1953 past transistors, and the integrated excursion took its place in the 1960s. So, in less than thirty years, the bones approach to the figurer was established.
A Computer in Every Home
The reckoner's role in the Quickening entered another significant period of change in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Macintosh calculator and IBM's PC take since been rivaled by many competitors clones, much less costly with virtually the same features. And the wonder of it is, the technology is advancing so quickly that the next generation of computers becomes one-half as big and twice as fast nearly every xviii months. The prices likewise tend to drop every six months so that it is now possible for more people to either own or lease a computer.
Forecasters of trends in computer engineering science foresee the day, perhaps in the early twenty-commencement century, when computers will be and so small and powerful, they will exist integrated into our lives much like hearing aids or eye wear are today. It is likewise more than likely that the new versions will be combinations of telephones, computers and television, or video.
Web Crawling
Nowhere is the computer'southward role in the Quickening more than obvious than on the Internet. As computers become an increasingly integral part of our lives, we realize that the computer is not but a tool to improve the way we do business, learn, or amuse ourselves, but is a real way to connect with the rest of the world. How is this achieved? As with the Internet, for instance, a network is used; you basically have a "hub" and people dialing in on their figurer modems become "spokes" into that hub. Thus you are sitting in a virtual "city" with thousands of other people and you lot wander effectually going from building to building or room to room, each of which presents new people or new information.
The Internet, funded and created in the late 1970s by the American government, was originally intended to link colleges and universities every bit a means to facilitate the commutation of ideas and research between academics and scientists. Electronic or "E" mail graduated to existent time chat, enabling users to not merely access remote data, simply also to communicate with others all over the earth.
No one imagined the Net would become what it is today. It has since evolved to span the earth as the World Broad Web, and tens of millions of users access it daily. The most popular networks are commercial, such equally America Online and Prodigy; they are well organized and brand access to the information highway easier.
A Shared Interest Cyberspace
The Net is a major factor in the Quickening. What other "invention," we'll telephone call information technology, volition consistently enable people to avoid physical contact with the outside globe, yet simultaneously interact with more people than you could meet or laissez passer in a calendar month walking down the street? Want a magazine or newspaper? Simply find the appropriate address and scan for hours, read articles, view colour photos. Christmas rush got y'all worn out? Sit down down in the condolement of your dwelling and take intendance of everyone on your list in no time at all, without fighting those crowds or waiting in line.
The Net will allow people to practice library research, check government databases, read reviews, and more. Or you tin can chat with people who share the same interests as yours. Are y'all a horse person? A reckoner game fanatic? Like to melt or sew together? At that place are places for you and everyone online. Academic and scientific researchers tin meet and exchange ideas and plans online. If a scientist at Tulane University has a new method of studying cancer, the global scientific and medical research customs will know about it immediately, making it more apace beneficial.
Depression Price & Access For All
If you lot are wondering, well, that's fine if you lot speak English, only what most the people who only speak their native linguistic communication? NEC, the Japanese firm, is 1 of several companies to conceptualize that very question, and have introduced an instant online translator. Then if you run into a Japanese person online, your English is automatically translated into Japanese and vice versa. Similarly, there is a phonation technology on the marketplace that enables non-typing users to only dictate messages to their reckoner, or fifty-fifty script engineering that allows a written bulletin to exist converted to digital text. Advances such equally these volition encourage many more than people from all walks of life to go online.
The number of online users is increasing exponentially. By 1999, more than 300 million users are expected to admission the Internet daily. By 2001, the forecast is for in backlog of one billion users. Dropping costs for computers and telephone charges take a lot to do with this unbelievable growth. In fact, having a reckoner will soon be as commonplace every bit having a VCR or toaster, and the cost of using it volition exist merely pennies.
The significance of the Net and computers, equally the Quickening continues, is the many means in which they volition affect all aspects of our lives. Imagine not sweating and swearing your way through morning traffic. Imagine the farthest you have to go is from your bed to your computer monitor in your home role. Imagine banking, investing, and shopping now online, soon within virtual reality. Imagine your child in a virtual classroom, interacting in a style he or she might never have had the opportunity to in a traditional classroom, able to literally "experience" history through the Internet. Can't become away for that weekend fishing trip? Try a new three dimensional fishing download or virtual reality line-fishing, getting back in time for a productive day of work, in front of your computer of course.
Nanotechnology
A fascinating case of how computers, science and technology are interconnected is nanotechnology, what tin very basically be defined as "lesser-up" manufacturing. Nanotechnology is one of the most cutting edge technologies of today, with the potential to conceivably dwarf all factors of our lives. This involves molecular construction and the precise placement of each atom.
The fact that whatsoever manufactured product could be dramatically improved has everyone getting in on the research game with a blindside; for instance, the Japanese have committed more than than $200 million to a ten year development plan for specific applications of nanotechnology. Some have speculated that nanotechnology could create a world in which there was no starvation, that a "food car" in every house would take in any kind of organic cloth and push out steak or rice on command. Sound incredible? How about a earth in which people demand never die every bit every damaged cell is repaired instantly by a team of "nano arts and crafts" inside your veins and arteries?
Information technology should be no surprise that the involvement level is then high. Twentieth century science and engineering is focused on an ever-increasing understanding of the universe on a smaller and smaller scale--from electronics and computers to biotechnology and drug design; all the while nosotros are creeping ever closer to unlocking magic at the atomic level.
How does this tie into computers? A corking bargain of nanoengineering has already been done on the computer; Eric Drexler, the world's first Ph.D. in nanotechnology, and others have come with extensive designs for what are essentially molecular "replicators." Evidently, we must ask ourselves, "Do we have the wisdom to handle this?" It raises a lot of ethical concerns about creating and controlling artificial life. Clearly, crossing the potential threshold of nanotechnology would accept far reaching socioeconomic implications for generations to come. Nanotechnology is i exciting and also scary example of our progression through the Quickening.
Computers--A Way of Life
You can see that everything in our lives volition be affected in some way past the advances of computers and the networks upon which nosotros are setting the new structure of club. But this is just the beginning. Our attitudes toward computers will change as we learn to take these devices literally as extensions of ourselves, and this volition prepare the states for the phenomenal changes, positive and negative, in the about futurity.
Telecommunication Domination
Computers play a principal role in another important facet of The Quickening: telecommunications. Telecommunications volition take us to an unprecedented level of sophistication and integration of engineering science in our lives. What is telecommunications? Essentially, it encompasses several fields of technology including telephones, television, computers, consumer electronics and satellites. Around the turn of the twentieth century, telecommunications began with the telephone combined with early electronics. This yielded wireless telegraphy, or the radio.
Telecommunication evolved very quickly in much the same way as computers and atomic weapons. The technology for radar and idiot box emerged by the late 1930s and after 1945, the Japanese miniaturization of electronics gave birth to consumer electronics. Rocket engineering science combined with the "brains" of a figurer had satellites orbiting the earth in the 1950s. Historically, nosotros have been driven to find ways to communicate faster and easier with each other.
Wireless Wonders, Fiber Optic Fantasies
One of the biggest limitations of our constant companion, the telephone, is non being able to encounter the person we are talking to. The not-also-distant future volition bring what may be called "teleputers," "picocomputers," and PAS (personal assistant system) devices, all equipped with video capability; you lot can see by the very names that the accent will be on smallness. These handy, inexpensive gizmos volition be highly powerful computer/wireless video phones with which the user can send and receive data, vox, image, or video in any linguistic communication, to anyone, anywhere. Already many businesses have invested in the available video telephone applied science and PC-based conferencing systems. The apply of satellites and the Internet for this very affair will get commonplace.
An advantage of technological advances is that the more than at that place are, the less costly they become for us as consumers. In our changing earth, fiber optic cables will replace more expensive copper wiring, non only reducing the price of laying the cables, but in fact handling a hundred times the number of calls. In addition, the pregnant increase in transmission clarity provided by fiber eyes has resulted in a higher volume of usage. In plough, long distance calls are cheaper, and they are poised for an even sharper downwards spiral. Fiber optics also make it possible for articulate video images to be transmitted.
Jumping In
Thus far, companies have been specialists in their given technology: AT&T in telephones and satellites, Sony with television and other electronic consumer products, Apple with computers, and so on. But at present nosotros are showtime to see a crossover. Fifty-fifty these mega-companies recognize that they cannot create and market place products in a vacuum; they must learn to cooperate and compete at the aforementioned time in lodge to stay at the forefront of irresolute applied science and its exploding market. Either that or smaller, versatile entrepreneurial companies volition eagerly spring upwards to profit from this burgeoning market.
All the big players such as Motorola, AT&T, Sony and Apple tree, wisely conglomerating in many cases, realize that these products must address individual consumers rather than existence directed solely toward concern applications. The path of the future for these companies is directly related to the needs of the individual, as diverse and varied as we all are. Systems like these personal phone/computer devices will create a more than independent, autonomous individual by eliminating much of the "spinning your wheels" syndrome. Loftier tech companies are anticipating this need and are becoming better focused on the style life is changing in the Quickening.
For example, more and more than people will practise their shopping online. This has only been possible with a combination of telephone and computer technology, creating cyber malls; later you volition see this evolve into virtual reality experiences complete with caput or full body gear. Yous tin admission and wander through aisles filled with greeting cards, skis, books, airline destinations, and much more. As more than and more people accept the ease and convenience of using time- and effort-saving personal devices, the demand for such products will increment.
Virtual Reality
I accept mentioned virtual reality many times because that is the direction we are headed in. Virtual reality, sometimes chosen "cyber infinite," will make the phrase "accomplish out and touch someone" not just a cliche, just a daily occurrence. Virtual reality is the closest anyone can get to having a physical, three-dimensional experience without actually doing it. Sounds confusing and complicated, but it isn't.
Virtual reality, as nosotros have come up to empathise it, is basically a auto simulating the experience that we equally humans would take walking down a street, looking through a rack total of dresses, playing a video game; this technology lifts you from your place in existent time and enables you to engage in multiple experiences without leaving your chair. How is this possible? Information technology's all done in a 3-dimensional computer graphics environment to which the user is connected with special headgear, eyepieces and sensory gloves.
On perhaps a more applied level, with virtual reality, engineers and architects are able to "construct" buildings and "walk" through them; in this way, they are able to inspect for structural weaknesses, or go an idea of what a certain architectural feature would await like before investing the time and money of their client. A more controversial use involves sensory suits, which some say could create "cyber sex" and other full torso experiences.
For something less frivolous, surgeons could use virtual reality to meet a three-dimensional image of organs and tissue to assist in more precise surgical procedures. Patently, as with any powerful applied science, virtual reality has the potential of beingness used for the good of humanity or to its detriment.
Become Clone Yourself!
The recent developments in genetic engineering are even so another instance of the amazing and frightening technological advances of our time. For years, information technology was known that we could theoretically accept the bones genetic components of life, Deoxyribonucleic acid, and replicate that, recreating another organism, mayhap fifty-fifty a person. In other words, scientists could take tissue cells from a few scrapings of my peel, derive the Deoxyribonucleic acid from those scrapings and theoretically produce another Art Bong indistinguishable, or "clone." Simply recently, has this reached beyond theory.
The Roslin Institute and PPL Therapeutics in Great britain boast of having been the showtime group of scientists to have successfully cloned a sheep. In this case, the nucleus (the eye of a jail cell) was extracted from adult cells, cultured in vitro and injected into the egg of a surrogate mother sheep. The mother sheep somewhen birthed a healthy lamb genetically identical to the sheep from which the cells were derived. At this bespeak, scientists tin can now apply this applied science to clone people.
Not everyone in the world is pleased with the idea of cloning. Many people reject the idea of cloning as human being's effort to play God. They charge that, despite any potential positive results, it is unnatural to manipulate and control genetic material to create the desires of individual man. Richard Nicolson of the Bulletin of Medical Ethics commented that cloning could be the undoing of the man species, and to pursue it further could be like "sowing the seeds of our destruction." Of course, it is entirely probable that this technology could fall into the wrong hands. Thus, cloning is yet another serious issue our troubled world cannot ignore as merely another curious slice of news.
How Does All This Affect Me?
These are just a few examples of the Quickening technology. Information technology may be difficult for you to imagine that any of these changes mean anything to you lot, but I assure you, they practise be and will continue to play a dominant office in our lifetime.
With all of the progress in telecommunications, chances are people will become more contained considering much of what they practice now out in the "real" world volition be accomplished online. Errands that may mean packing you and your children into the car to go done will take a few keystrokes and a lot less stress! You won't spend the fourth dimension and energy that you used to performing such mundane tasks as shopping, banking, paying bills, or even commuting to work.
Yep, I tin can meet a smile on your face as you realize that you volition spend more than and more time in your cherished private space--your home. The fact is, many more of us volition be doing our piece of work at dwelling. Does this mean we will exist interacting less with people? No. Probably the opposite. People are still gregarious by nature and will want to identify themselves with other people. Nosotros volition get online to find others with like interests in conversation rooms, and seek to group with them, "hang out," if you will. In some cases, we volition really meet with them in person, merely more than likely, we volition communicate with them via video conferences. Why? Because the friends and acquaintances we make will exist all over the globe. Telecommunications and technology have the odd effect of making us closer even when nosotros are far apart.
Of course, all this individualism can besides produce detrimental furnishings. I recollect information technology very probable that an irony will be: although humans are social past nature, nosotros also demand our own infinite; therefore, as people isolate themselves more than, hiding behind the convenience and privacy of loftier tech gadgets, nosotros may become more selfish. A sort of divisiveness may occur. People may be considerate only to those with whom they have called to maintain contact and shun everyone else.
A recent article in the New York Times indicated that students at Dartmouth University are constantly increasing online time. Fifty-fifty roommates will sit on their corresponding computers to communicate and play networked games! Yous tin can see that there is already testify of a tendency for people to gather less oftentimes in groups in person and more of a tendency to meet online.
Speaking of games, controversy is raging right now over the recent announcement of the top ten computer games of the last year. The well-nigh popular and best-selling games are all graphically violent and many people are concerned that this will foster violence in the people who play them, especially children. Can we expect to enhance compassionate, decent children when they are addicted to games in which they mutilate and kill on screen enemies? Or are the effects that vicious?
Telecommunication--phones, computers, and all way of electronics--can foster individual political autonomy which will also result in a diminishing sense of national identity. Why should you feel any fidelity to a country when you take your online friends, co-workers or business organization peers all over the earth? In other words, it is possible that we will come across a tendency toward a sort of tribalism.
Engineering science and telecommunications also relate to politics in that terrorist operations have become more sophisticated. Take Iran, i of the wealthiest countries in the globe. It is nothing for them to engineer a terrorist assail, transferring funds to the advisable groups electronically and secretly. What most Iran's ongoing purchases of nuclear technology from scientists in Russia? And what Iran's leaders, and many other countries as well, have done is develop nuclear technology into a smaller and more user-friendly form that transports effortlessly over borders. How can nosotros possibly guard against engineering that is then advanced?
Advancing Engineering
Indeed you can see that the boundaries of the aspects of the Quickening are blurred; here you take seen that engineering science affects the fashion nosotros behave in society, it affects our global safety, it affects our political ties, and much more. We can wait frontward to astounding numbers of technological advances in the very about futurity. For the "Millennium Generation" and across, the sky will exist the limit. At any rate, you should take a good look at the world effectually y'all because it won't be the same when y'all wake up tomorrow.
(C) 1997 Art Bell All rights reserved. ISBN: ISBN: i-879706-seventy-9
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