Читать книгу FLEX - Rick Grimaldi - Страница 17

Way back in 1968, on the popular sci-fi television series Star Trek, Scotty leaned into his hand console and asked, “Computer, what is the distance between Earth and the Romulan galaxy?” It seemed fantastical at the time . . . that a computer could instantly deliver that information.

Was he speaking to Siri even back then? Now that students worldwide have been schooled via Zoom, it's easier than ever to imagine a student today working with a partner who is an actual computer, perhaps creating a virtual model of that Romulan galaxy and then sending it to a 3D printer to produce an immediate 3D model of it.

What was once science fiction is now just a Siri request away. Artificial intelligence is here. Indeed, 21st-century technology has become embedded in our daily lives as an indispensable part of how we work and play.

The proliferation of apps—everything from meditation and rain sounds while we sleep to Cloud-based task organizing and expense capturing—are available to us for instant download for just $3.99 (as long as you don't mind uploading your credit card data . . . a prospect that was unthinkable just a few decades ago).

That's made possible by the seamless interface with the two major mobile operating systems (Android and iOS) on which much of the world's population depends.¹³

What's more, the Internet of Things has now arrived and is innovating rapidly. What is the Internet of Things, exactly? It's a term describing the billions of physical devices connected to the internet. Each device is equipped to sensors to tune into the ambient environment. And every single one is collecting and sharing your data.

The Internet of Things includes items as small as a tiny pill that can diagnose clinical information on patients who swallow it and as large as driverless cars and trucks with trailers. Think smart watches that record your daily steps and grade your fitness. Or the heat in your home that switches on automatically when you enter.

Technology is remaking our world dramatically with everything from brain implants restoring movement in paralyzed patients with spinal cord injuries to gene therapy 2.0, which is curing rare disorders and readying to take on rampant killers such as cancer and heart disease and deadly viruses such as COVID-19.

Meanwhile, in Europe and Asia, governments are using face-detecting systems to authorize payments and stop criminals in their tracks.¹⁴ Stay tuned to see if this new trend catches on worldwide.