Past Present and Future Technology

When I look back on the past 10 years I am amazed at the amount of change that technology has embraced. We all knew the effects of con-stant change in education. When we retired, we thought that we would be sheltered from constant change, lol!
“lol” is the text message form of “laughing out loud”. This gives us a good starting point for look-ing at the development of technology. Although text messaging had been around for over 10 years, it really began to spread in the year 2000. Nowadays, it is estimated that there are over a billion text messages sent every day, and the number of new subscribers added to the networks numbers in the tens of thousands a month.
One of the most visible and discussed technolo-gical changes is the past decade is that of social networking. There were many experiments with bringing people together. Dating services and alumni groups, were working hard to build up data bases. It wasn’t until 2003 when My Space was introduced that social networking began in earnest. It wasn’t long before many groups emerged, FaceBook among them. It is estimated that there are over 16 million Canadian FaceBook users, and the list continues to grow.
It isn’t a perfect world. With the growth of email, social networking and instant messaging, there isn’t much time left to actually spend time with another individual who isn’t texting, tweeting or emailing.
The advances in entertainment in the past 10 years have also been phenomenal. Computer gaming with online play have really become a standard fun activity for many youngsters and young adults. Microsoft introduced the X-Box in 2002 and the game “Halo” became the highest grossing game sale ever. Play Station 2, and the newest Nintendo iteration started making their mark on the gaming industry. Not only do children or young adults participate, now seniors are getting into the act. Do you use a Wii on a regular basis? It can be a lot of fun.
Along with gaming, there have been many ad-vances in music and video. In the past ten years, the iPod was developed, along with iTunes. No-wadays, almost any song ever performed is avail-able for download, at a cost. We also can’t forget the E-Readers such as iPad, Kindle, etc. There are hundreds of thousands of books that can be down-loaded and kept on your electronic reading device.
We can’t forget video advances. Gone are the bulky VHS tapes. These were replaced by the DVD in about 2003. Mini versions of them were used in movie cameras. With mass production, prices dropped and quality increased. Nowadays, the cameras are sometimes less than half the size and hold many hours of video thanks to the advent of flash memory. Of course, almost everyone has a camera with them most of the time, because they carry a cell phone. It is now hard to imagine that there is any noteworthy incident that hasn’t been filmed or photographed from a number of angles, and almost instantly made available on sites such as YouTube.
During the past decade there have been greater demands for increased technology in medicine. C-T scans and ultrasound scans have increased in availability and frequency. Microsurgery, where small incisions are made and a doctor manipulates a remote controlled instrument inserted into the treatment area, are more common place. Laser eye treatment has become a standard option to wearing glasses. Noise cancelling earphones are available for helping prevent hearing loss in high noise environments. The field of prosthetics has improved tremendously from advances in technol-ogy.
What does the advancement in technology tell us about the future? Here are a few changes I expect we’ll be seeing.
As the past decade of business indicates, there will be more purchasing done on the internet than in brick and mortar stores. We will be shopping globally and seeing the UPS driver often enough to know his name.
Information will be instantly available. When travelling, if illness occurs, all of your health records will be available to a medical practitioner, likely translated automatically to the local language. Visual linkage to your family physician or specialist will be available to foreign medical facilities for collaboration. There will be a much greater reliance on a ‘team’ approach to your health.
Greater advances will take place in protecting your privacy and your personal information. Teams of technology experts constantly work on upgrades to privacy protocols and procedures. Virus attacks will become more common between people than between computers.
Because of technology advances, there will be greater safety on the roads and in the air. And of course, we will be offered new ways to entertain us while travelling.
No one can predict the future with a high degree of accuracy. The best thing to do is stay on top of change and become an activist for responsible change and personal safety. If we don’t control change, it will control us.