We recently saw a young woman on the street with two cell phones. One was up at one ear and the second up at the other ear. She switched back and forth while talking; with two parties presumably or, we hope not, to herself. Is this a new trend in multi-tasking and communication?
We listen to baseball announcers today. They say much and communicate little -- they can go on about a hernia or a new contract detail for 20 minutes while there is an unreported homer with bases loaded. Is this the future of communication: reports on hairstyles while Rome burns?
We hear from the enthusiasts that RFID tags will soon be talking not just from a loading dock to a truck, but from our closets to a vendor, or our kitchen to a grocery store. Is this possible clamor by our clothes, our soda water, our electric fan and our Nike sneakers going to be the condition of communication in the future: a chaotic noise beyond Babel? Will our sneakers talk to each other? Before we all go mad with RFID, shouldn't there be standards and ground rules? Do we throw barcodes out with the bath water? Better RFID tag them before we do.
What do we hook up with an RFID tag: an ERP program, to a SCM system, to a Product Lifecycle Management application? Or should it be all three and the warehouse management system as well?
One of the benefits of bar codes is that they are only active when we need them, they have to be scanned within a reasonable distance and they rarely get to our closet or bedchamber.
We are also fast reaching the breaking point with e-mail. Forget the vulnerability of e-mail to viruses and other pop-up and spam-like incursions. E-mail can become an incursion all by itself. The amount of e-mail produced each day is accelerating sharply, and the amount of spam is accelerating at nearly the same rate. Our own e-mail has grown from a few each day to a few an hour, or worse, and much worse with more downloads each day and, oh Lord, the graphics. How many e-mails are too many?
We seem to lust for real-time information even when it is basically an illusion. In the factory, how do we balance out getting all the data but not too much data, regardless if it is real time?
Of course, no one in his or her right mind will advocate going back to the telephone party line, or the telegram, or sneaker net (even with RFID).
However, if all the products and devices talk to us all the time, will we ever be able to make sense of the accumulated data; and will we want to?
But enough of this stuff; let's take on the big gorilla.
Those who saw the film "Timeline," or read the book by Michael Crichton, know just how cleverly he makes use of quantum theory as a somewhat plausible background for his story. Of course, he takes teleportation beyond its practical limits, way beyond, but he does not take it beyond its theoretical limits. The only thing that goes beyond theoretical limits is his sales.
What this theory comes down to is the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect. Not a new idea, but in recent years a fascinating idea that has led to limited teleportation. We start with scanning a part of the information from an object, designated "A," that one wants to teleport. The remaining un-scanned information is passed, via the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect, into another object, designated "C," that has not been in contact with "A." In time, through applying a treatment (that depends upon the scanned-out information) to "C," it becomes possible to bring "C" into the exact same state as "A." In fewer words, the quantum state of one entity is transported to another entity. Holy moly!
Several cautions: an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Effect machine is not yet available at your local CompUSA. Of even more consequence, when "C" is brought into the same state as "A," "A" disappears. In other words, there is no replication, no cloning. The original is destroyed.
What a great device for a detective story, and how the lawyers might love it. Whatever you send becomes identical to the original, but at the cost of the original. If we could send a thief, he or she would no longer be a thief as they are not the original thieves. A signed document would not be the real signed document, except who would be able to tell? Doesn't this make the girl with the two phones, and RFID, seem like a cakewalk?
It is also hard to think that we may all live to see a day when messages are received before they are sent, and yet that may be a factor within this mad world of quantum physics.
Stick around, life may be getting interesting for a change, and if not interesting, at least more confusing in a new and more complex way.