Seams Like a Story

One only needs mention technology and, based on the listener’s recent experience, you will receive a mixed bag of responses. Over the past few weeks, I’ve experienced it all:

The Good

It’s modern technology that allows me to write, edit, and send my work out into the world. I spend a lot of time in front of my computer and, with ergonomics in mind, I recently purchased a new wireless keyboard. My new keyboard has a slight wave design and a padded wrist-rest. At first, I worried I wouldn’t be able to adjust, but as the keys are all in the same place, I was soon up and running (typing…. not literally running.) Now, I love it and can’t imagine going back to my old keyboard.

The Bad

Having used my new keyboard to type a recent submission for my critique group, I prepared to print. My computer refused. In a series of back and forth “conversations” my computer informed me: No printer installed. Unplug your devices and restart. Clear your queue. Do you want to fax? Check your internet connection, and finally, Computer not communicating with printer. Great. Apparently my computer and the printer had a fight and weren’t speaking to each other. I gave up. Later that day, when I wasn’t looking, the printer spit out one page of my document.

Last week, my husband and I went to Las Vegas to celebrate our wedding anniversary and upcoming birthdays. When we arrived at our hotel, instead of finding a welcoming counter and crew of hotel staff members waiting to assist us, we faced a long row of computer kiosks.

The first thing the machine wanted was our confirmation number. We didn’t have it. Or maybe we did, but couldn’t locate it on either of our phones. Had it come to us in an email? Text? Was it forever lost in the information-soup we receive daily? For the next 15 minutes we pecked away at the keys: name, address, etc., and still “no reservation found.” Perfect, I thought. I guess we can stay up all night or sleep in the casino. Some do.

Finally, we found a live person, a staff member, who located our confirmation number on her iPad. Then, she directed us back to the kiosk to fend for ourselves. Sigh. Twenty minutes later, after we had programmed our own room keys from the “room key kiosk,” we were on our way to our hotel room. We dodged a giant-sized Roomba sweeper machine vacuuming the carpet in the hallway outside of our room.

The Astonishing

Once settled in at Vegas, we found the most astonishing events brought to life by technology. Just steps away from the noisy, crowded, and 108 degree Vegas Strip , we found the Arte Museum, a massive 30,000 square-foot immersive digital art exhibition. “Eternal Nature” was the current theme, and through technology, we experienced a stories-tall waterfall, a walk along an ocean beach, a stroll through a forest, and a walk in a garden, as if we were actually there .

In another venue, Michael Jackson came to life through his music interpreted by a dazzling Cirque du Soleil performance that could not have been imagined without today’s technology. At one point, Michael was actually dancing with the cast, though I’ve yet to figure out how that happened.

And finally, The Wizard of Oz movie at Vegas’ newest attraction, The Sphere, where the original movie played in practically 360 degree detail using 4D features including wind, snow, leaves, apples falling. and monkeys flying. Truly astonishing.

And then…

Perhaps there is a fourth category…a hybrid of good, bad, and astonishing.–maybe technology that is on the horizon, but not quite there yet. In Vegas, driverless, robot-taxis are becoming more commonplace and we saw many of them in operation. Called “Zoox” they operate through an app. Our Uber driver told us that he recently saw one stalled in the median. Wave of the future? Perhaps. For now, I prefer a human driver.

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