The Future is Here...

"As I've said many times, the future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

At work, we have a Technology Room which I'm kind of in charge of. It's been set up to showcase the latest media technology; Sky HD, Media Centre PC, Apple TV, Slingbox- that kind of thing.

Part of the message we're trying to get across with it is the essence of William Gibson's statement. The signs of the future are all around us but their significance isn't always clear until later on. The "alpha-geeks"- the innovators who are leading the way into the future- are already experimenting with technologies, reacting to events and innovations that most of us are still unaware of.

We can predict certain things about the future- for example, it's fairly safe bet that in the future, all television will be sent using internet technology, over the same cables as the telephone network— maybe even the electricity grid. In the future, more films and television shows (although probably not all) will be shot using high-definition digital technology. And in the future, more and more people will be using services like Video On Demand and Personal Video Recorders to organise their media consumption. What is harder to predict though, is exactly how we're going to get there.

Another lesson of the room is that technology is confusing. We're at a stage where on one hand, there is convergence in technology markets; television from Sky and Virgin Media is bundled in with broadband, telephone and mobile packages.

So, now that pretty much everything is in the new flat, it's time to connect it all up again. Which means a lot of wires to deal with... But it also means that, combining my obsession with all things digital and my job of understanding what technologies are out there and what people are doing with them, I'm in a pretty good position to try to be one of those "alpha geeks" and make it my responsibility to have a real understanding of what these technologies are like to set up and to use.

In other words, I've convinced myself that it's my professional responsibility to make this my "Technology House". In the living room, the entertainment systems are going to be revolving around the new PS3 and the flat screen TV. Choosing the television highlighted what I already knew about technology being confusing; it also reminded me that despite being quite a gadget geek and having spent a lot of time researching the different options out there (both on a personal and professional basis!), I'm still just as confused as anyone else about that technology.

"The more I see, the more I know, the more I know, the less I understand…"

I also discovered on reconnecting my PC that something has gone wrong and it wasn't starting up for some reason. I knew that something had gone quite horribly wrong somewhere deep down in it's innards (the power button was turning it on, but wouldn't turn it off again), but I had no idea what, or how much work it was going to be to get it working properly again. But on the other hand, I realised that so long as all my music was still there on the hard drive and I could still get my iTunes collection onto my iPod, I wasn't sure if I was really all that bothered. So I was looking at that as an opportunity to improve the network, rather than an IT disaster.

Fortunately, it turned out to be relatively minor- some pins in the CPU had got bent (after I undid the clips to blow out some dust and detritus, then decided against it and did them up again), and simply straightening them out with a fingernail got the thing working again— much to my surprise. (It's when this kind of thing happens that I'm reminded of an old car, held together by bits of string and gaffa tape that give it "character"… until the next time something goes wrong and it breaks down, at least…)

So, as far as media and information technology goes, this is going to be my attempt to predict what the house of the future is going to be like, and when all the "furniture and fittings" aspects of the house have been finished, this part of the site will follow the progression of the new technologies that make their way into my living room.

Just as soon as I can fit some time around Grand Theft Auto…