The first computer monitors were cathode ray tubes. You got bright green or gray lettering on black, 80 characters by 25 lines. And in the earliest days of the personal computer revolution, you had to buy a monitor card to drive it. Video wasn’t built into the motherboard.
In 1981, IBM introduced the CGA (Color Graphics Adapter) card, which supported 16 different colors. In 1984, this was followed by the EGA card (Enhanced Graphics Adapter) which gave us 16 colors out of a palette of 64.
VGA (Video Graphics Array) was introduced in 1987, not as a card, but as a single chip that could be mounted directly on a motherboard. VGA cards were also available to those of us with older machines. The VGA had 16-color and 256-color modes. It could display 262,144 different colors. (6 bits each for red, green, and blue). VGA was the start of the real video revolution in personal computing.
VGA gaming gave us Flight Simulator with actual scenery, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Sim City, and even the first iteration of Warcraft. It wasn’t quite up to photographic realism or video, but it transformed the way we used our computers. VGA resolution made Windows 3.0 practical. Even useful. While VGA resolution was primitive by today’s standards, it made it possible for us to start using our computers as visual tools.
In 1990, IBM introduced the XGA (Extended Graphics Array), which assigned 8 bits per pixel, making it possible for computers to display 65,536 different colors (at 800×600). Since then, we’ve also seen Wide XGA (1366×768), Wide XGA+ (1440×900), WSXGA+ 1680×1050), WUXGA (1920×1200), and WQXGA (2560×1600).
The history of the computer industry is simple—as the technology has advanced, we have continued to expand the different ways we use it.
The other side of the display revolution is the camera revolution. Today, the world is full of cameras, marvelous lustworthy wonderful cameras like the Canon 7D—but even the cheap cameras have features that were unimaginable just a few years ago. You can buy a 10-megapixel still camera, that’s also capable of video recording, for less than a hundred dollars. The latest models of the Flip give you HDTV recording for less than $200. You can buy a high quality webcam for $50. If you want to spend twice that much, some of the current Logitech offerings have resolutions that surpass what any current monitor is capable of. (3264×2448)
Imagine what the world will be like when even cheaper high-res cameras are routinely wireless and even self-powering through solar cells. What will we create when all of our cameras and displays are interconnected in our home networks?
Imagine sticking a disk or a bead or a button to a wall that monitors your front porch or your back yard and automatically stores any picture that doesn’t match the previous one. Imagine having cameras all over your house so you can track where you left your car keys when you stumbled in last night or what’s in the fridge or which animal pooped on the hall carpet. Video calls among family members would be more convenient—and could follow you from room to room. What if your car made video-recordings so you would automatically have the license number of the guy who dinged you in the parking lot.
Imagining this technology is easy—most of it is already on the shelves or in design. It’s inevitable. It’s how we’re going to connect it all together and use it that gets interesting. And not always interesting in a good way. I’m talking about “May you live in interesting times” kind of interesting.
Cheap cameras and screens will make photo-security inevitable everywhere. It will change crime investigation, it will change the trial system when video evidence becomes more compelling than witness testimony. It will force changes in the legal system when investigators try to subpoena recordings from home networks.
Total surveillance will help us find lost children and missing persons, hunt down kidnappers and car thieves, and could even help us find our cars in the endless parking lot.
The point is, we cannot assume that we have privacy anymore. We don’t.
A girl in Korea didn’t pick up after her dog defecated on the subway. The video went viral and she became an international phenomenon of shame and disgrace. The woman who dropped a cat into a dustbin was videoed by a security camera, the video went viral and she was caught within hours. Another viral video showed a girl throwing newborn puppies into a river, she was quickly identified and arrested. And a security camera in England revealed a man abandoning his dog.
Maybe the Orwellian ubiquity of cameras will inhibit some of the worst behaviors. But there’s a much darker side as well. Cameras can also be used for cyber-bullying. Rutgers student, Tyler Clementi committed suicide because his roommate videotaped him having sex with another man—and then put it on the internet to ridicule him. While there will be criminal charges filed and the resultant discussion will cause us to look at the limits of privacy and whether or not we still have a right to it—this particular monster is already out of its cage and running amok in our culture.
This is going to change the way we interact with each other. It’s too soon to predict, but ten years from now we’ll look back and be amazed that we didn’t see what was steamrollering toward us.
What do you think?
—————
David Gerrold is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning author. He has written more than 50 books, including “The Man Who Folded Himself” and “When HARLIE Was One,” as well as hundreds of short stories and articles. His autobiographical story “The Martian Child” was the basis of the 2007 movie starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet. He has also written for television, including episodes of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Twilight Zone, and Land Of The Lost. He is best known for creating tribbles, sleestaks, and Chtorrans. In his spare time, he redesigns his website, www.gerrold.com
Related posts: