Wearable Tech, The Circle, and Google Glass

I am over-the-moon excited about wearable tech – and I know it’s finally a thing because Amazon has its own wearable tech store (http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=9013937011). I have a Fitbit Flex, an iPhone, an iPad, and numerous mp3 devices. I am hopeful that the iWatch is coming soon, although I’m not positive I have a use for it. One of the articles telling me about the iWatch (which is far from confirmed) quoted a poll from September stating that 49% of Americans believe wearable tech is a fad. And that’s about how much of America I hate. I don’t know where the idea that technology is bad comes from – maybe movies like I, Robot and Transformers, but I can’t wait for Rosie robots like on The Jetsons and an entire life like The Circle. If you haven’t read The Circle yet, you should. It’s extremely well-written by Dave Eggers and it depicts a world I’m excited to be a part of… even though I think the point of the book is to discourage a social media-driven world. I welcome a world of driverless cars and no money and even very few possessions – if I could live in a completely virtual world, I would do it.

So then I start you-tubing around the internet about wearable tech – you-tubing is a phrase I just invented this second, and it means looking at one article or piece of information online and then all of a sudden it’s four hours later and you’re watching the video for “Oops… I Did It Again.” So anyway, I start you-tubing about wearable tech and happen upon this article: http://mashable.com/2014/05/24/google-glass-user-fights-restaurant-ban-with-bad-reviews/ that tells the story of a woman being asked to remove her Google Glass in a restaurant because of other patrons’ security concerns. This article shouldn’t have shocked me, but it did. When did we decide it's okay to live in a world where new technology is frowned upon and people who beta test new things are mocked and called mean but funny names like Glassholes. Things like Google Glass and Recon Jet are amazing technological advancements and I think most of the people who hate these devices don’t really know what they are or how they are used. It’s true that anyone with a smartphone (which is everyone, including my grandmother) can take video of you without you knowing, and that doesn’t seem like a problem – cell phones aren’t banned in restaurants.

And doesn’t everyone know that the world is probably a lot like Person of Interest? Everything you’re doing is probably being recorded anyway, so why would an unobtrusive item like Google Glass make any difference? It’s people like this who have slowed technology to a crawl. I mean, it’s 2014 and I still drive my car using gasoline and have to do all the driving and stopping and crashing myself. I should have a driverless car by now, and Tesla creator Elon Musk’s hyperloop should have existed for years already, not just in preliminary design (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop). And speaking of that, I want a replicator. Yes, a Star Trek style replicator for food – I would even be okay with a Jetsons-style cube of food that I eat a few times a day.

One day, I hope to live in a world where I have little else but a replicator, a comfy chair, a TV, and a variety of tech devices. I don’t need books if I have my Kindle (except a few from college that I wrote funny comments in) and I don’t need any paper documents as long as I have a computer. It will be a better world and I can’t wait.