Time-Travel to 2000

[AmeliaJane]

I loved this article about the differences between today and 2000, which for so long was a symbol of "The Future." I was surprised by how many changes since then seem so ubiquitous...I have a smart phone and I have trouble remembering that I have only had one for about three years.

https://medium.com/editors-picks/cbd6bdc6b283

I really feel like technology has become the thing that evolves, rather than clothing or hairstyles. I have recently been watching a couple of television shows from the late 1990s/2000, and I am struck that I really notice the technology changes (phones, computers, etc) but the clothing and hair are not that different from what I see around me today, especially on the men. Granted, one of these shows is about people working in Washington DC and the other is about small-town New England, so the characters are not supposed to be particularly fashion-conscious. But imagine comparing the clothing of 1968 with 1955...

[ApatheticNoMore]

I have seen "The Future". It is murder.

But more seriously, the lack of innovation is mostly a symbol of a society in decline I think. The technological innovations were computers available to individuals, the internet, I guess you could arguably say basic cell phones though I'm doubtful. Everything beyond that is just a variation on a theme (smart phone, not smart phone, tablet, whatever, there's little truly innovative there).

The lack of innovation in fashion and so on (although I don't really care, I just want clothes that aren't all weird as trends sometimes can be) is also probably a symbol of decline.

[oldhat]

I wish I could say that reading this article makes me feel overwhelmed with gratitude that we're now in 2013 instead of the Dark Ages of 2000, but I'm afraid most of the innovations it describes are things I could easily do without, and in most instance, do do without. I don't have a smartphone, don't use Twitter, and have a Facebook page only because certain people pestered me to get one. Email (or even snailmail--eeek!) does me just fine for virtually all my personal communications (everyone in my office uses IM, but I just don't see the advantage). The author of the article is clearly very unhappy he didn't invent Dropbox, but before that we had something called ftp, which allowed you to transfer large files pretty easily.

That said, it is nice that technology keeps getting better and cheaper. But the tone of article suggests that living without all the Web gizmos that clutter up people's lives nowadays is some kind of privation. Not for me. It takes time to sort out what's useful from what's trendy, and I plan to continue being a very late adopter of new technology.

[pinkytoe]

I think about this topic often; I don't really "get" the obsession with technology. The basics are wonderful and appreciated but after a while it all seems like variation on a theme. I think the main thing I have noticed with the increase in technology is how the amount of advertising has grown tremendously. It truly is everywhere now.

[creaker]

Makes you wonder what we have now that in 2026 will look like clunky, silly, old technology?

[catherine]

I think the incredible aspect of this is just how quickly the technology changed, changing the way we do things. This is just like the turn of the century, 18th to 19th-but instead of the Industrial Revolution we have the Technology/Information Revolution.

I have seen unbelievable changes in office life, as I got my first office job in 1974. It's mind-boggling. That was when my company, NBC, had ONE fax machine--ONE. It was in the News Department and it was called a "dex machine" and we were amazed by it. We had to ask permission to use it and we were lucky if the permission was granted, and it had to be an emergency.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I don't think it's like the turn of the century, I think that innovation is slowing down masked by glitz, by bling. But that's just a sense, as I don't know everything that is going on, I don't necessarily know much about innovations going on in say medicine (which is certainly very active). But no it's not indoor plumbing, electricity, the telephone, antibiotics, space exploration, splitting the atom (though I sure do wish they hadn't) etc.. But I grant desktop computing and so on, I mean computing power cheap and small enough to be owned by individuals is pretty remarkable, plus the access to information that the internet represents. Thing is all that stuff was way pre-2000.

stuff like this from the article are just cheap:

In the office, you start up your desktop computer to check the address on Google Maps — which of course doesn’t exist yet.

yes but mapquest did, like anyone really cares so much whether they are getting maps from google maps or mapquest, it's a brand name, why be so attached to brand names. The basic software existed.


Time to check Twitter for the latest…ah well, no Twitter yet. So let’s see what your friends are up to over on Face…doesn’t exist either. Not even MySpace. Heck, not even Friendster

newsgroups, and I would check what was going on on them. Things like Facebook are of course a step backward from the greater anonymity that preceeded it.


The upside is this: You’re in for distraction-free news reading. You head over to Newsunlimited.com, the online version of The Guardian

hey not to much different than what I do now :) Actually yes I remember 2000, I was on the net and plenty active on it. I worked and offices have not changed much since then (the computers are more powerful but they need to be to run the clunkier software). Though OTOH what I wouldn't do to go back to that economy! Yes the access to news has improved (it seems in tandem with government secrecy and the official news getting more and more unreliable making it more and more necessary). But who goes to all the effort to seek out all that alternative news? Some people do, but I'm not convinced it's a majority.

[catherine]

APN, I respectfully disagree. Changes to access to information have drastically altered how we do things, and even how we think. I'm not saying for good or for bad, but IMHO, we are in the middle of an information revolution. It's not just news. It's not just Twitter. It's not just google maps. It's the whole gestalt.

[bae]

But more seriously, the lack of innovation is mostly a symbol of a society in decline I think.

I think the pace of innovation is *increasing*, I suspect you just aren't looking in the right places, or are only seeing what you want to see.

For instance, an example from one small niche: when I went into a fire the other day, there was real-time telemetry being sent back to the EMTs at my rehab station, who were watching my vitals, comparing them with historical medical records of mine, and deciding how hard and long I could work in the hostile environment before it was time to swap me out. They were consulting with our medical director over a remote video link.

Inside, I was using a small handheld thermal-imaging camera to locate team-members and victims and hot spots in the building. The materials in my protective clothing were providing substantially more personal protection than was available 10-15 years ago, with considerably less weight. My gloves allow me to accomplish things that were simply impossible with the gloves of 10-15 years ago. The lights I was carrying were putting out much more light, much more usefully, for longer periods of time, at a fraction of the weight of the lights of 10-15 years ago.

Another example: the automated external defibrillator I carry around is a small fraction of the weight and cost of units from a decade ago, produce better results, and are a great leap forward. One of the guys in my fire department is the MD/Ph.D. who did much of the R&D on this stuff, it's vastly superior to what we had before.

Almost everywhere I look, I see innovation. Heck, even in the vineyards here, we are producing better grapes than we were 10-15 years ago, for less effort and cost, more reliably, mostly because of improvements in our technology and processes.

[SteveinMN]

Changes to access to information have drastically altered how we do things, and even how we think.
I agree. Speaking specifically of the Internet, that access means being able to contact organizations, big and small, 24 x 7, to check addresses, hours of operation, inventory, and ask questions. We can pay bills on-line and have our account history downloaded in a convenient form to our own computers. We can get medical information simply. We can contact friends and strangers to ask how to do things or sound out ideas. We can support acquaintances and friends in areas of interest (like living simply) that are big enough on the Internet even if we seem to be the sole person interested in that in our little corner of the world. All this is particularly useful if we happen to be less mobile. I really think the information-sharing aspect of the Internet is widely underrated.

And, as bae points out, technology has improved pretty much every other corner of our lives. People can now map routes to anyplace they want to go without collecting and unfolding unwieldy paper maps which go out of date quickly. Anyone with an insulin pump can tell you that life is better with it rather than numerous tests and injections each day. When was the last time you called someone and the phone just rang and rang, with no opportunity to leave a message? Our cars and appliances are more efficient than ever thanks to microprocessor controls. That "Saver's Switch" on the outside of my house allows the electric company to throttle back air conditioning in times of very high electrical demand, cutting down on the need to build powerplants to handle peak load (and giving me a 15% break on my electric bill). Hypodermic needles are thinner because of advances in manufacturing technology.

Technology is so much more than invasive ringtones and cat videos.

[catherine]

For instance, an example from one small niche: when I went into a fire the other day, there was real-time telemetry being sent back to the EMTs at my rehab station, who were watching my vitals, comparing them with historical medical records of mine, and deciding how hard and long I could work in the hostile environment before it was time to swap me out. They were consulting with our medical director over a remote video link.


I went to a medical conference last December, and the speaker did his own EKG on his iPhone right there on the stage. The implications for empowering us as patients is unbelievable.

[Gingerella72]

It's weird to think of all the things we do online now, that we didn't just a short time ago. And it feels completely normal, like it's always been this way. In 2000 I would have been using dial up to sign onto AOL and visiting with my friends in the AOL chat rooms, lol. I still don't have a cell phone, let alone a smart phone (can't afford it), and we only have a desktop PC at home and work, but do "live" most of my life online - banking, research, entertainment, photo sharing.

[Gregg]

The technological innovations were computers available to individuals, the internet, I guess you could arguably say basic cell phones though I'm doubtful. Everything beyond that is just a variation on a theme (smart phone, not smart phone, tablet, whatever, there's little truly innovative there).

To just cherry pick one example, a smartphone and a cell phone are different animals. Other than making calls, texting and maybe taking a picture they don't share anything in common. A comparison of the desk top most of us had in 2000 to the smartphone of today would probably be a little more accurate although that computer didn't have anywhere near the capability that my phone does today. There were first gen smart phones available 20 years ago, but the phones and the networks they run on were nothing like today.

The real fun is trying to imagine what the phone of 2025 will be able to do! Seamless voice control, 3-D imaging (hologram projection?), augmented reality, near field communication (no more carrying ID, cash or credit cards around)... You may never need to actually drive your car again. You certainly won't have to leave home to rent a movie and your phone will probably have a HD projector in it so you don't have to watch anything on a small screen. I think it will pretty much be a case of if you can imagine it it will happen.



I went to a medical conference last December, and the speaker did his own EKG on his iPhone right there on the stage. The implications for empowering us as patients is unbelievable.

What a great example to show the potential value of a device.