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The present isn’t anything like I was told it was going to be back when the present was known as the future. I remember when I was a kid how these technology and space experts would say we would have settlements on the moon by the year 2000. Cars could fly, cold fusion would be achieved and household pets would be given the right to vote.
Obviously, those things haven’t happened yet, but some other things have come to pass. None of the people I heard from in elementary school guessed that we’d have a magic little box inside our pockets that would allow us to speak with others who had a similar magic box. That kind of thing was only seen on Star Trek. Well, it seems almost everyone has one now.
I remember my father’s first portable phone for work. I was pretty young so I was very excited to see this thing, even though you could show a modern cell phone to a kid, and they wouldn’t care. It was roughly the size of a small suitcase and it was so heavy it needed a shoulder strap. I called my mom at home while my dad and I were out driving, and she couldn’t hear a word I said. The conversation went something like this.
Me: “Mom!”
My Mom: “Hello?”
Me: (Even louder) “Mom!”
My Mom: “Is someone there?”
Me: (Almost shouting) “It’s Paul!”
My Mom: “Paul?”
Me: “Yeah, Dad and I are in the car!”
My Mom: (after a long pause)… “Hello?!”
Even though that phone didn’t work very well, it was still cool to see this kind of thing in its infancy. Looking back at what we started with in the field of wireless technology, it’s simply amazing to see what we have now.
Now, the ability to communicate with others while you’re on a plane is here. It’s almost like you’re Capitan Jean-Luc Picard dishing out orders from the bridge of The Starship Enterprise.
It’s fun to see the strides that engineers are making with wireless communication. A signal that would have never reached you on a plane can now be amplified into a signal that’s just as strong as your home modem would be.
However, there is one drawback from having this ability. I’ve noticed that many companies believe that if you can work, you have to work. Now that you can work from a plane, there’s no excuse for you not to. Innovation starts out as something cool… an extra little thing that makes your life easier, but it sometimes becomes more necessary than helpful.
For all of you that might feel this is more than a curse than a blessing, I would suggest using this line on your employers. “I didn’t have my laptop on during the flight because I was trying to save the battery.” It’s not a lie, so use it liberally.
