Technology and the Media

5 years from now... I don't believe too much at all will change in the next 5 years.  I think social networking will continue to grow in new and slightly different forms i.e. new websites and portable apps for accessing them.

15 years from now... I have a very strong feeling based on how things are progressing today, that 3D; more specifically forms of holograms will emerge and take over as the new form of how media is displayed.  Movies, television, and video games may very well end up as interactive 3D holograms perhaps even with texture.  I'm also very positive that all 3D images will be able to be experienced with out the need of glasses or eye wear of any sort; the first device to do, the Nintendo 3DS twill launch in the Spring of 2011 so I think its safe to say that this will be normal in 15 years.

50 years from now... This time frame will definitely consist of mostly science fiction and things I personally would like to see happen.  I feel that in 50 years humans should have made gigantic leaps in achieving star travel.  The ability to at the very least send manned space crews to a other planets with in our solar system.  I'm not going too bold and demanding the answer to light speed, but I would hope we can do much more than orbit out planet and send a few people to the moon and back.

Snowcrash

This was a really awesome cyberpunk story with great characters and most importantly a fantastic writing style.  The story is set in a futuristic dystopian society.  The way the society was set up was in a sense not too different from how things are today but taken to the extreme.  I found the types of technology described to be fascinating.  The idea of creating any kind of avatar that pleases you for use in a digital world is interesting considering the types of avatars people are able to create today.  The virtual library was also amazing especially the way characters were able to communicate with the Librarian.  This was undoubtedly one of the best assignments of the class.

Blood Child

Bloodchild is a short story by Octavia Butler.  It's a sort of grim and disturbing sci-fi story that  takes place on a distant planet where humans are essentially slaves to the race of bug like creatures that inhabit the planet.  The thing that disturbed me the most would be the compromise that was established between the two races.  The humans would allow themselves to be hosts for their parasitic reproduction. Even more odd, human males were the best hosts for the job.

I didn't dislike the story but I also didn't particularly enjoy it either.  It brought some interesting ideas to the genre, but being the type of person that is cursed with producing mental images involuntarily made enjoying this story slightly difficult.