Sycamore (Near-Future Dystopia) Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘portable device’ is synonymous with ‘smartphone.’ A system needs a processor, a display, and a control interface. That used to mean a PC, a monitor and a keyboard-mouse combo. Then came the era of the touchscreen: a display and an interface rolled into one. Smartphones housed the processor under that touchscreen to give us portability and efficiency.
    “So what did the UltraLenses add? An invisible and unobtrusive intermediary. The Lenses added Lenses.” Kurt paused. “Why are we adding things?”
    “Where are you going with this?” asked Amos, unhappy with Kurt’s tone.
    “Exactly. Where are we going with this? Sycamore was supposed to change everything. I’ve been wearing these things for the last eight months and my life is the same. So where am I going? Let me finish and you might find out.”
    “That’s the idea, Mr Jacobs.”
    “I know. Where was I? Okay. I’m not a big fan of glass. Whatever we do, we’re always looking at glass. Families in their living rooms, looking at glass. Children on the schoolbus, looking at glass. Half of you in this room, looking at glass.” A man in an aisle seat near Professor Walker looked up from his lap. “Put your phone down for five minutes,” said Kurt. “We both know your life isn’t that important.”
    Some of the audience laughed. Amos smirked. Kurt saw.
    “I’m not a fan of glass screens because we no longer need them. We don’t need TVs now that we have these excellent Lenses, so why do we persist in carrying smartphones around? Some of the cool kids don’t — they use smart watches. But what’s the difference? They still have to wear a bulky watch and look down at it to see their data. I can’t accept that. I won’t accept that. Obviously the UltraLenses lack a sufficient interface and processor to fully replace phones and watches, but I’m sure we can all agree that they represent the best means of displaying data. The UltraLenses are our system’s display.
    “Now, onto the interface.” Kurt turned to his laptop, still relaying his vision, and began performing gestures on its trackpad. “Something like this. Look how easily it controls the zoom of my UltraLenses; having this with me all the time would be like having binoculars with me all the time. I’m not suggesting we carry around a trackpad in place of a smartphone or watch because that wouldn’t achieve anything. What I’m suggesting is that we turn something else into a trackpad.
    “I shouldn’t have to say that this is possible, but just in case: this is possible. A small chip can attach to the bottom of all sorts of surfaces and turn them into virtual trackpads. I couldn’t afford to buy a chip like that to demonstrate, but it’s real. They sense pressure and vibration to determine the nature of the gesture and, as long as whatever the chip is attached to isn’t too thick, it works as well as a physical multitouch trackpad like this one.
    “With touchscreens, we used to use styluses. People said a finger would never be accurate enough. Those people didn’t consider the infinity of human ingenuity; all we needed was a different kind of screen. We used to walk around with a device in one hand and a stylus in the other: hand to stylus to device to hand. The stylus fell in the wake of progress. The device is about to join it.
    “And I haven’t forgotten about the processor, in case you were wondering. It’s the chip that lives under our virtual trackpad. I say ‘chip’ for ease of understanding. We have a microprocessor and a vibration/pressure sensor. Both are very, very small and can be contained within a bubble of sorts, no larger than a few grains of rice. Think of the bubble as a chip.”
    Kurt looked down to Amos and saw him tracing a circle in his left palm. He was following.
    “Everything I’m saying tonight is important, but this is the most important part: the day of the handheld device has passed. All we need is a display, a processor and a control