science fiction and future tech

[cellio]

Occasionally, we all look at the science fiction of decades gone by and are amused by the technology they didn't predict. You know, stories set in the far future where computers occupy entire rooms, because no one in the 60s imagined anything different -- that sort of thing.

I sometimes look at today's SF and wonder what we're getting terribly wrong. Recent Star Trek still postulates separate data and voice devices a couple hundred years from now, but the combined PDA/cell phone/web browser is here now. (Earth: Final Conflict combined them. But it's a recent show, so you'd expect that.)

I realized another such glitch recently while watching Andromeda: data ports. How many stories are out there where characters have data ports directly wired into their brains, like (in this case) Seamus Harper does, so they can just plug themselves in and go? And Star Trek's Borg are seen plugging themselves into ships' computers all over the place (blithely ignoring authentication issues, but let's not spoil their fun too much...). But surely wireless networks will rule the future world and coaxial cables will be a fond memory of the 20th century, right? What's with these physical connections?

(If I recall correctly, Blake's 7 got the wireless thing right with Orac. I think it just had to be near another computer and it could (try to) hack it. On the other hand, the federation's main computer -- what, no distributed network? -- occupied a large room.)

Predicting the future is hard, of course, and sometimes the goal of SF is to create an interesting world, as distinct from a likely one. I'm not complaining.

Comments

[geekosaur]

Actually I'd think not using wireless is good; it's a truism that the only real computer security is physical security. Although Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan took the demonstration of that a bit over the top by revealing that Federation starships have short PINs for security overrides. Guys, I could crack that with my calculator; what could Klingons do with real computers? :) (Although evidently that was fixed by the time of Star Trek: Generations....)