Invisibility

Decided to travel across West Lancashire and up the candle this morning for a service at St Cuthbert's. Rather good actually, thanks to Fr. Paul.
I was also impressed by the sound system. Didn't have any visible signs - no huge mixing desk at the back. Just little black speakers that I had to look hard to find. But with excellent sound quality. And the radio mic. was first rate.
All in all, then, some impressive technology. Because it wasn't noticeable. In fact, the most obvious technology on display was the light bulbs.
Ideally, technology should not be there, but it's effects should.
Impossible, of course, like the smile on the Cheshire cat.
But that is I think the ideal.

If you install a big screen at the front of a church, unsurprisingly people notice it. That is a problem. It usually takes a few weeks or even months before people forget that it's there, and concentrate on what's actually on the screen. Possibly some people never get there. I'm quite a fan of projecting onto walls rather than screens - it lessens the negative impact of the technology while still reaping the benefits (assuming the projector is bright enough).

There is a risk with any technology of the means supplanting the end that it's there for. Even, for example, with the ancient technology commonly called "books". Some people are interested in the way a book is bound, how it's cover is illustrated, the gilding on the edge of the pages. For some people, especially when buying a "Christening Bible" for instance, the book's appearance can become more important than the content.

In time, technology tends to get tinier. Which is good. Because that means it's disappearing. But it's still doing the same job, or probably a better one. A computer that would once have filled a house is now inside a mobile phone. In fact most of the tasks that needed a desktop computer 15 years ago can now be done on a smartphone. There are a couple of limitations though which currently limit the size of a phone.

Part of the genius of the iPhone was to throw away the stylus, but to have an onscreen keyboard. But keyboard size is fixed because of the size of people's fingers, and so there's no point trying to make a phone smaller.

More importantly perhaps, the screen needs to be big enough to show useful amounts of information. There have been attempts to put a projector in a phone, which might work indoors but isn't practical in many places.

It's likely that both displays and so keyboards will be able to be made flexible, even fold-up or roll-up before too long.

One technology used by musicians onstage has got a lot smaller in recent years. Musicians need to hear themselves, and this was normally accomplished by having wedge-shaped monitor speakers on the floor just in front, facing back toward the band. Anyone who's anyone now has in-ear monitors - wireless earphones that allow (for instance) the singer to hear mostly themselves (something singers usually like!

The visual equivalent of this is to wear some kind of glasses which contain a display screen (or even a retinal projector) I sometimes wonder if that's why sunglasses are 'cool'. One day we'll all be augmenting our realities by looking out at the world though display shades. I hope that doesn't frighten you too much!

I don't know what happens with our future bodies. Hopefully we won't be needing technology at all, so it will have completely disappeared.


1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)

However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

Location:Halsall