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Daily Travels |
"Joan, it’s time to wake up. The shower is at your desired temperature. Your coffee and breakfast will be ready when you finish."
The voice is that of Joan’s house, Alyssa. Recently
constructed, Joan’s house is completely interfaced, as are all new buildings
and many older buildings in the
Joan, freshly showered and dressed, steps into the kitchen where there is freshly brewed coffee. The refrigerator/microwave dings, and Joan pulls out a hot breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage.
With breakfast out of the way, there is time for Joan to look at today’s schedule.
"Alyssa, what does my schedule look like today?"
The wall above Joan’s fireplace springs into life. On the left is the image of a woman, who looks vaguely like a secretary from the 1950’s. On the right is Joan’s schedule for the day.
"You have a meeting with your project group at
"At
"After that, you are free to get some work done until
"I’ve sorted your messages by importance. There are three messages
from your project group members forwarding the information that you asked them
to retrieve before this morning’s meeting. There is a message from Wallace
& Son’s asking for help in deciphering their contract. There is also a
message from your refrigerator saying that the milk is three weeks old and
ready to walk out on its own and that you are out of eggs. The last message is
from the grocery store informing you that your milk and eggs will be delivered
by
With that, Joan sits down to prepare for her 9:00am meeting. Even though Joan works for a company that is
based in
"Alyssa, call up my notes from the last project group meeting as well as any change requests by Wallace & Son’s since then."
The images on Joan’s wall suddenly changed. Now on the
left side of the wall, the faces of the six members of her project group look
back at her from their prospective homes across the country. On
the right side, the notes that Joan has just completed.
During the meeting, Joan and the others in the group are able to show each other both graphics and text and add each person’s contribution to one program, which will be the basis for Joan’s presentation to Wallace & Sons later in the day. The group works together to finish the presentation before the boss breaks in. The meeting ends just as the left portion of the screen coalesces from the faces of her team into the face of her boss.
"Well," asks Joan’s boss, "what do you have for me?"
With a few keystrokes on the keypad that is embedded in the armrest of her recliner, Joan displays the presentation that she and her group have just completed. After an hour of collaboration, Joan’s boss seems satisfied and reminds her if she keeps up the good work, there is a possibility of a promotion in her future.
Joan puts the finishing touches on her presentation.
"Your lunch is being delivered. Chinese again. Wouldn’t you like to change your habits? Perhaps have Chinese on Wednesdays instead of Mondays?" asks Alyssa.
"I’m a creature of habit," Joan replies back, and gets up to go to the door.
Joan opens the door to reveal a teenager with a box of Chinese food and a small handheld computer. Joan presses her right thumb to the computer and takes the box. "See you next week," replies the teen as he turns to head back to his electric car.
By the time Joan gets back to her living room, the walls
have changed from the subdued blue to an image of the
Just as Joan finishes eating, the scene disappears and the news comes up on the screen above her fireplace. The scene flickers as it rapidly displays the various news stories. Joan stops it when she sees the Governor of Michigan holding a big pair of scissors.
"…Governor Smith is about to cut the ribbon to officially open the Auto-Expressway. As you probably already know, the Auto-Expressway is a joint venture between Daimler-Ford-Chrysler and the Michigan Department of Transportation, which will allow DFC’s latest model the AUTO-mobile to drive on the Auto-Expressway without human guidance. Kind of on auto-pilot, if you will," joked the anchor.
"A spokesperson from DFC said in an earlier interview that they
expected the experiment to be so successful that all major highways throughout
the
Joan was still chuckling from the news story, when her
screen changed yet again. Henry Wallace and his sons stared back at her from
their offices in
"What’s so funny?" they wanted to know.
"Just a news story," replied Joan.
"I remember when the news wasn’t so funny. Back around 2007 when the riots got so bad. Now that everyone stays home more often, there is a lot less crime. That and Big Brother watching. Why, just last week I was driving back from San Diego, I was in a little bit of a hurry you see, and when I got home the traffic court was up on my wall. I got a ticket for $200. Tried and convicted right in my own living room. Outrageous!" Mr. Wallace exclaimed.
Joan sympathized with him for a moment before beginning
her presentation. All of the hard work that she and her team did seemed to have
worked. Although Mr. Wallace seemed less than enthusiastic about having his
company "go Virtual" his sons were wholeheartedly behind the idea. Pretty
soon, Wallace & Sons’ would be fully integrated with the "net"
and would no longer have to maintain an office at all. The entire business
would be run from the homes of Mr. Wallace and his sons, but Joan suspected
that the sons would be doing most of the running. Mr. Wallace didn’t seem
comfortable with holding virtual meetings and conferences. He’d even made Joan
actually fly out to
Joan settled into her recliner to put together the final
report to send to her boss. The finishing touches would be put on the system
for Wallace & Sons and the corporate lawyers and law computers back in
Promptly at three, the doorbell rang. "Oh yes," thought Joan, "the groceries." Sure enough, she opened the door to see a delivery bot. She placed her thumb against its front panel, which then opened to allow her access to her groceries. Along with the eggs and milk, there were some items that her pantry must have ordered. Just like the pantry to not advise her when she was out of something.
When she finished retrieving her groceries from the delivery bot, it closed its panel thanked Joan and began to roll away. "You’re welcome" replied Joan.
Since her work was finished for the day, Joan decided to do some shopping.
"Alyssa, I could use a few new outfits. What does the new fall
lineup from
Up on the display, a three-dimensional picture of Joan appeared. Every few seconds, the mini-Joan’s clothes changed. In the corner of the display was a window with the designer himself narrating the fashion show.
"I’ll take the green and the brown outfits. Do you have any shoes to go with them?"
The display changed to a saleswoman who showed Joan several pairs of shoes and Joan watched as the mini-Joan tried on each of them.
"I’ll take those," Joan said, as a nice pair of black low heels appeared on the simulacrum. "Have them delivered as soon as possible."
"Of course," said the saleswoman with an Italian accent. "You’ll have them tomorrow morning. Will there be anything else? No? Ok, your account has been charged for your order. Have a nice day."
Joan had just enough time to get ready for her date with Chris. She told Alyssa to again call up the 3-D mini-Joan and to try on each of her outfits. Joan discarded half of her wardrobe before settling on a black blouse and skirt. Joan cursed the fact that her new shoes would not be delivered until the morning. "These purchases just take so darn long to deliver." She complained, "There has to be a way to speed up the process."
Joan had just finished dressing when the door chimed. Alyssa informed her that Chris was at the door. Joan put on her most fetching smile and opened it. Chris stood there holding a bouquet of flowers and wearing the small tele-computer watch that was all the rage.
"Hi, hon," Chris greeted, giving Joan a kiss on the cheek and handing her the flowers. "Where do you want to go tonight?"
"Oh, Chris," Joan replied, "Can’t we just stay in tonight? I’ve gone virtually everywhere today."