Technology (Main Frame)

Telecommunications

The convergence of technologies such as fibre optics, satellites, televisions and computers has led to a worldwide information network available to everyone.

Hand held apparatus means anyone can communicate with anyone from anywhere at any time as well as with any of the 3,000,000 public databases available worldwide. Communications on this scale at the speed of light has many advantages but some abuse of civil liberties is also possible and the Data Protection Agency is one of the most powerful organisations in the land.

Space Manufacturing

Many new alloys and drugs can only be manufactured in space. The special conditions of micro-gravity and high vacuum unobtainable on Earth has led to the creation of orbiting space station. Only in space can certain mixtures of metals be prevented form separating and their crystal structure controlled. Genetically created drugs of sufficient purity can only be made in space.

These processes have led to alloys with greater strength and lightness and new families of drugs. Workers commute to and from these space stations not unlike the oil workers of the last century who travelled to and from the rigs in the north sea.

The Electronic Office

Offices were places where lots of people worked together, usually to carry out administrative functions concerned with commerce, banking and industry. The integrated office allowed word processing, electronic mailing and inter-office communications to be performed fairly efficiently.

Offices were however, expensive to maintain and nowadays ' Electronic Office ' refers to the widely distributed network of people working from their own homes and using telecommunications to link to their firms central computing facility. This is much more cost effective for the company and is preferred by the workers who no longer have to commute and to suffer traffic jams twice daily.

Computers

In 1986 the quest began to create 5th generation computers. Using parallel processing, new computer languages and advanced micro-technology the idea was to create faster, more powerful thinking computers. These machines have now been with us for many years and it is inconceivable that any society could function without them eg. electronic shopping and all ' cashless' transactions make computers essential tools. The older machines used QWERTY keyboards or touch screens but nowadays voice input / output makes computers so user-friendly that anyone can use them.

With Megabytes of memory, very dense circuitry and optical connections these computers operate at the speed of light and are so inexpensive that everyone has one.

Artificial Intelligence

Using high density microelectronics, new programming languages and parallel processing the 'think computer' has been around for many years. These computers contain extensive knowledge bases obtained over many years from a large number of experts. They can solve complicated problems, and more importantly can give reasons on how they arrived at a solution. They have natural language understanding and are at the interface of man-machine communications.

These Expert Systems act as advisers to doctors, teachers, lawyers, judges etc. and in some cases perform better than humans. eg. systems with a good knowledge of the human body means medical diagnosis can be quicker and more accurate and some people even prefer talking to a computer about their medical problems.

Interactive Video

Video discs which use optical methods to store data means that very high density of information storage can be achieved. a single disc can have the equivalent of 30,000 books stored on a single side. Electronic publishing means that books are no longer printed on paper but are stored on video discs and can be accessed by home computers from video libraries. Discs are available on any subject and this has changed the functions of schools.

Pupils no longer go to school to learn separate subjects eg. Physics, since the whole course of experiments and theory can be obtained on a single video disc. Schools are rather places for games and social interaction. Public databases like PRESTEL used to use static pages but new technology using laser discs gives a degree of interaction not available on the old system.

Weather Control

Weather monitoring and forecasting has been around for many years. Monitoring is performed automatically by a worldwide system of satellites and since modern computers have sophisticated mathematical models of the atmosphere and can perform many 100's of millions of calculations per second, predictions can be made with ever increasing accuracy. 100 years ago some effects of the weather could be controlled eg the Thames Barrier could mitigate the effects of very high tides.

Scientists nowadays not only predict but can also control some aspects of the weather eg. humidity and temperature can be manipulated but only over very limited locations. The forces of nature are so powerful that it is doubtful if we will ever be able to affect the weather over all but the smallest areas.

The Electronic Office
	Offices were places where lots of people worked together, usually to carry out administrative functions concerned with commerce, banking and industry. The integrated office allowed word processing, electronic mailing and inter-office communications to be performed fairly efficiently.
	Offices were however, expensive to maintain and nowadays ' Electronic Office ' refers to the widely distributed network of people working from their own homes and using telecommunications to link to their firms central computing facility. This is much more cost effective for the company and is preferred by the workers who no longer have to commute and to suffer traffic jams twice daily.