Technology Changing

We all accept that things change in the world of technology. 25 years ago CDs made vinyl old hat overnight. And 10 years ago Apple revolutionised the small portable  Walkman digital music market with their IPod and  CDs suddenly seemed old fashioned.

Before the late 1990's the majority of people only had access to the Internet at work and then mostly for emails. We bought our first PC  Christmas 1999 and had a dial up connection via AOL. The memory on the PC was 8GB! My current desktop has 250gb and I have a separate external Hard drive with an additional 250gb and I still worry about running out of space for my “must have" data! And near universal Broadband has made dial up almost obsolete. I can take my laptop to Costa or Starbucks and numerous other places and browse the Net  on their wireless service for little or no cost and at  speeds undreamed of 15 years ago.

My new (Smart) HD TV has access to the Internet (wireless connection to my router) and I watch BBC iPlayer and HD You Tube videos on my 42” TV from the comfort of my armchair.Picture quality is superb

Even mobiles (and my kids cannot comprehend how we managed before mobiles especially when I tell them that my first mobile was issued after much pressure from me via work only in 1993)have changed too and it is commonplace to access the internet on them. In fact I can often be found watching You Tube music videos on my  HD TV Googling the band’s website on my wife’s Blackberry.

What has brought this all on is a couple of recent Skype chats with our son who is in Bordeaux. Now I know Skype is not new and in some senses old hat but it still impresses me. Growing up and watching Dr Who and Star Trek we dreamed of this sort of technology and now here it is. I wonder how soon before we get “beamed up” to our destinations rather than drive/fly?

So there we were sat in our kitchen in suburban Newcastle, me, the wife, sister and brother in law chatting to our son in suburban Bordeaux. Sound quality as good as most phone calls, picture quality more than acceptable (we could see that his spots had cleared up). Via his Web Cam (built into his laptop) he gave his Aunt and Uncle a tour of his apartment and we all sat there in Newcastle marvelling at it all.

Then we signed off and ordered a curry from the local excellent takeaway which got delivered to our door. It's not just technology that has changed