There are two types of stories about exciting technology. They can look very similar to the unwary optimist, since both generally start with a phrase along the lines of “it seems like the stuff of science fiction, but…”
Nevertheless, the difference between them is crucial.
The first type, and the most familiar, is the “scientists say” piece, usually accompanied by an engaging proof-of-concept video and hooking a society-changing event on the result of research by an academic somewhere.
You will know these: a good example are stories featuring Kevin Warwick, the Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, whose research into interfaces between computers and the human nervous system has mind-blowing implications.
But without seeking to discredit Warwick in any way, these implications tend to remain just implications. There’s no doubt the work conducted in his field provides constant incremental benefits to medical science – particularly in the field of prosthetics. Nevertheless it does not, and could not, immediately lead to the sort of dramatic, Robocop-style stuff conjured by the headlines and standfirsts that journalists usually dress it with.
Probably the most prolifically repeated “science fiction to become reality” narrative is the “scientists say they can bring back mammoths” story that comes floating out of Russia every couple of years. It has spawned documentaries, broadsheet features and endless daydreams from anyone who had a bag of plastic dinosaurs as a kid, but it never bloody well leads anywhere. It has reached “boy who cried hairy elephant” status, and as such receives serious diminishing returns in terms of public interest.
The very worst of these stories, however, are the ones concerning flying cars. The machines themselves are now eminently possible, but the practical issues around their use are so many that they seem doomed to remain forever trapped at proof-of-concept stage.
We have gotten to the point where “where’s my flying car?” has become the battlecry of those who find themselves perpetually disappointed by the lack of dramatic futurism in their everyday life. Of course, the fact that most of the people issuing this complaint have, within the last five years, come to own a handheld box providing access to a near-infinite repository of human knowledge, is an irony that’s generally lost.
But there you go – no matter how astonishing and accessible information technology becomes, it’s flying cars that people really want.
And talking of IT and cars, here’s the second type of “science fiction” story – the type where company names get mentioned. Here’s a story the BBC ran today, about the onrushing development of cars that “talk” to other vehicles and the world around them. Note the first line of the piece.
The extremely important thing to note when reading this story is that not only is it a business, rather than an academic, driving the development (Frankfurt-based Safe Intelligent Mobility Testfield, or Sim TD), it is backed by the corporate muscle of Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen Group, Ford and Opel.
What’s more, Sim TD goes so far as to state, clearly and without ambiguity in the sixth paragraph of the story, that we will see talking cars in our everyday lives starting from 2015. Whether they will have a more dramatic takeup than electric cars is in the hands of those who will be selling them – the important thing is, we are being given a clear date for their arrival.
So, while cars that fly may be stuck forever in the purgatory of the cloned mammoths, at least soon they will be able to talk.
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