As he spoke to Halliday, he drove the stolen car towards the bridge. Khai had timed the drive perfectly, keeping his visor down as he approached the toll booth, aware of the closed circuit cameras at both ends of the bridge. He was at the bridge’s center when he ended the call, exactly where he wanted to be. Khai pressed a button on the steering arm of the car, slid his side window down, and flipped the phone out the window like a credit card. It sailed over the railing into the deep channel below and slowly sank to the bottom. He was three kilometres from the bridge when the police cruisers arrived, sealing the traffic at both ends.

In an earlier post, To Ping, or Not to Ping, I wrote about technological development in GPS tracking of cell phones. A more appropriate question would be what might these devices look like in 2050. To say the least, phone technology from 40 years ago has changed dramatically. Back then, phones were only expected to connect a single person to person call. Today’s smart phones have web browsers, email, texting, camera and video, games, music, voice recording, and the list goes on. Our current level of connectedness would astound anyone 40 years ago. It will be interesting to see if this continues to rise, or if users will start to rebel against it and try to seek a little more privacy. As it sits even now, it could be a difficult slide backward.

A particular challenge to writing OurGlass is to include devices and settings that will hopefully put the reader into a near future frame of mind. When the subject of the future comes up, I think there’s a tendency to let our imaginations run wild with design. I’m the first to admit these settings are interesting to look at, but I don’t think many are practical. As humans continue to grow as a species, I think our challenge above all will be population management. With more people on the planet and limited space to occupy, the time will come when real world solutions will outweigh the need for gadgetry and (dare I say it) artistic invention.