The New Technology; Three Game-Changers

The new buzz word in the Silicon Valley is “Simplify” and these three astonishing innovations tackle that techno-geek mantra, update it, reboot it, up-grade it and turn it into a philosophy, a wikipedia of personal style and ultimately, nothing less than a cutting-edge, steam-punk state-of-the art way of life! The past is the future and the future is now. So let’s get started, before Wired Magazine scoops us!

First of all, the retro masterpiece I’m calling the MePhone. Are you sick of the brain-tumor causing, relentlessly nagging, ubiquitous bleeping and vibrating cell phone? Are you sick of being pestered anywhere and any time by anyone with your name on a call list? Do you long for the days when your telephone was stuck in your house where it belongs, tethered to the wall, and you could actually hear the person you were talking to? Have you ever thought to yourself … I’d gladly trade in all my GPS triangulations, fart apps and youTube videos just to be able to get a clear connection? If so, then the gloriously chunky new MePhone is the product for you. Featuring a heavy ‘receiver’ you can actually slam down on a ‘cradle’ to ‘hang up on’ people who irritate you (just like Mom and Pop used to do) and a old fashioned ‘dial’,complete with little metal comma that stops your finger when each number’s spin is finished. It lets you feel the weight of the digits as they rotate back to rest with that series of clicks that tells you – "speed dial is so totally over!” Press four if you want to speak Spanish? Not any more! The day of punching buttons to talk to computers and hang-up robots is ancient history. Dial up a new era.

But you say, the MePhone doesn’t store phone numbers. Our next device solves that problem handily! The iPen actually uses a flow of liquid ink – not e-ink, but real, messy, paper-soaking, finger- staining gallatannate ink – which flows out with pressure of the nib on paper. This amazing tool requires no batteries, no charge, no wireless connection. You can take it anywhere, drop it in the bath water or onto the sandy beach, and it keeps on working. You’ll discover that you have something called ‘handwriting’ – a unique shape to the letters of the words you form with your iPen, a personal signature more unique than the one you’ll put at the bottom of your iPen contract. Is it more slow and difficult than dancing your fingers over a computer keyboard? Well, that’s the point. Slow down, feel each word. Dot the ‘I’s and cross the ‘T’s – you can finally do that. You can also doodle in the margins, scratch words out and just play. The iPen is mightier than the sword (Just jab it in your enemy’s eye). The writing is on the wall!

Finally we come to the long awaited answer to the e-book revolution. Finally a reader that never needs a single erg of electricity, that you can drop off a ten story building with breaking it, one you can mark up with your iPen to your heart’s content. It’s called … wait for it … ‘The Book”. This durable, take-anywhere item brings back the forgotten joy of actually turning pages. Not animated pages on a touch screen, but real, paper pages hinged into a stitched binding that smells of dusty leather, old summer houses and your childhood. Does this radical innovation spell the end of the Kindle, the Nook and the iPad? I’d say the future is ‘booked’ solid.

Next week: The abacus!