Future super powers

Capabilities we take for granted today were once considered the realm of fantasy. Until about 145 years ago, you couldn’t have a conversation with somebody who was miles away.

Similarly, photography, movies, sound recording, the Web and other media technologies have created new kinds of human super power. What was once considered impossible soon becomes taken for granted.

Various new super powers will emerge when everybody starts wearing those forthcoming Smart Glasses. There are too many to enumerate here, but a few stand out.

You will always be able to identify people you are looking at (and possibly their mood), you will know where you are in traffic (whether walking or driving), you will be able to know just by looking whether that restaurant you like across town has a table for you and your date, or whether there are still good seats at that movie theater.

But I suspect the one I will appreciate the most is the zoom capability. Whatever you are looking at, if you want to see it more clearly, you will be able to simply zoom in for a closer look.

Now that’s what I call a super power!

2 thoughts on “Future super powers”

  1. Define “conversation”. Postal mail has been around for a lot longer than 145 years, and people conversed with it (slowly!) up until the mid-20th century.

  2. If we are defining “conversation” that broadly, then we need to go far earlier than postal mail. Following your analysis, any form of written communication can support your definition of conversation. I write on my thoughts on papyrus, then sometime later you write your response on papyrus, and so forth.

    By that reasoning, conversation at a distance, broadly defined, has been going on for thousands of years. Which is why I find it useful, for the purposes of my post, to not define “conversation” in its broadest possible sense.

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