In your timeline post, you mentioned that Gryphon and MegaZone probably caught wind of Vision early on through mecha-spotter blogs. If HL was just going to reboot, are there any "modern" technologies that you would extrapolate into the HL era, specifically technologies that didn't exist in the 90's? Blogs? P2P file sharing? MP3 players? Tivo?

I know it's kind of goofy to expect people with implanted cybernetics to still be carrying about 10GB iPods, but between 1991 and 2000 cultures have shiifted, modern technologies have changed how writers view the future. My best example of what I'm getting at comes from a Neal Stephenson interview from a couple of years back; the interviewer (reporter?) asked him if he still thought data havens, ala the one in Cryptonomicon, were a good idea. Stephenson said that given that people have iPods and flash memory cards nearing 1GB, one localized data haven was kind of redundant, any secret information that needed to be preserved would likely already circulating amongst people.

It's kind of a nitpicky thing, but when you mentioned blogs, I got curious. So, in short, much like the ironic Pump-Up sneakers, are there any consumer gadgets you like now that didn't exist in 1991 and might they find their way into HL?

Oh, hell yeah.

OK, I might as well 'fess to it here - a Hopelessly Lost reboot is on the officially-in-progress list as of a couple-three days ago, and in fact the first episode is nearly complete as I write this.

So this question is a bit more trenchant than you probably expected when you posted it, S-P. :)

Anyway, yeah, there's a lot of technology out there now that I would - and will - use, or extrapolate new stuff from, in the new BGC-derived series (which won't be called Hopelessly Lost, but I haven't settled on what I am going to call it yet). Just as a few examples:

- There's a scene in episode 1 in which a character is listening to a satellite radio. Not only that, but it has an integrated TiVo/iTMS-like capability - if you like the song you're listening to, you can order your local client to "capture" it (automatically paying for it through an online credit/debit transaction in the background) and add it to your local library as well as any playlists you might be maintaining. You can also tell it to search the available streams (and there are a hell of a lot of them) for other music by the same artist, covers of the same song by different artists, songs that other people who liked the song you're listening to now also like, and so forth. Or you can just say, "Radio: I feel lucky," and may God have mercy upon your soul.

- Digital cameras built into eyewear, a la Spider Jerusalem's liveshades in Transmetropolitan. A pretty straightforward extrapolation/miniaturization of existing technologies. You put them on, you give them orders, they take pictures of whatever you're looking at. Movie-camera versions also exist, but are much more expensive because of the extra storage capacity they require.

- The Internet and the cable/satellite TV spectrum have pretty well merged into a single continuum of information, dubbed the InfoWeb in the early 2010s. Bandwidth is so cheap it's basically free; the integration of video and audio streams with text and still imagery is complete and seamless. Cross-platform compatibility is the norm rather than the exception. The 2030s' successors to Shockwave Flash actually work.

- Blogs and online news sites, which have, in this version of the future, sort of merged into the same thing (as they could be argued to be in the process of doing here in real life), are common sources for news in the 2030s. Public terminals similar to pay phones abound so that those who don't have (or just don't have with them) personal electronics still have easy access to the InfoWeb.

- More tightly integrated information and communications technologies. One character has a cybernetic implant which is basically a hardwired version of a Treo - it's a phone, it can surf the InfoWeb, it stores your appointments, whatever you like. If it involves storing, retrieving, or maneuvering information, this gizmo can do it, and all in the total privacy of your own head. Not for everyone - some people find the interface too disconcerting, others don't want that kind of instant integration of the InfoWeb into their lives - but the technology exists and is reasonably popular.

- Maglev technology is much more common and well-established in 2032 than it is today. This is another simple extrapolation, based on the assumption that it's easier/cheaper to get a high-temperature superconductor in The Future.

- In the 2030s, a Roomba will do a lot more than just vacuum your rugs.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/