I'm jealous

Two months ago, I got my first smartphone, a Motorola Droid. If you sit back and think for a minute, it is a marvel of modern technology. Here, inside a small glass, plastic, and metal case not even one inch thick, is a computer that has more computing power than the entire Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space missions. It has more computing power than the start of the shuttle missions.

Inside this wondrous little brick is a processor that can run the computer and provide clear, vivid video on the full-color screen. It has a GPS system in it. It can connect to 3G or wireless Internet. It has a compass built in. You can download applications that pretty much provide unlimited uses for it. It has a camera that can take pictures every bit as good as a 35mm camera.

I think back to 22 years ago, when I graduated from high school. Cell phones were huge monstrosities. A home computer was a luxury, with a large computer tower and a monitor that provides the colors of black and green. VHS tapes were the way to go, and CD's had only been popular for a few years.

Then there was college. My roommate brought in an IBM computer with a whopping 32kb of memory, and we will dial into Prodigy at a speedy baud rate of something like 4k! My first personal computer was bought in 1999, and it had a 3.2gig hard drive, 32mb of RAM, and a 300khz processor, at a cost of over $700. I'm working on a cheap laptop right now, paid less than $400 for it, and it 100 times the memory and 50 times the storage space, along with a processor that leaves that original one in the dust.

My first cellular phone was obtained in 1997. It was literally the size of a brick, with an antenna that you had to pull out before use, and my contract gave me a huge!! huge!! sixty minutes of free airtime a month.

Around this time, the DVD began to surface. I purchased my first DVD player in 2000, and it was a huge machine with limited functions, and I can remember the huge jump in picture clarity and sound. I paid a sizeable chunk of change for it, too. Today, you can buy a DVD player only 1/8 the size of that first one, and pay a simple 20 to 30 bucks for it.

I remember Atari, the old 2600 that my parents got me in 1981. Games on it look so cheesy today! We had Pong before that!

In 1996, I bought a 32" stereo television, a huge monstrosity that basically takes two people to move. 12 years later, I bought my first LCD TV, and the differences are incredible.

I'm not at the forefront of getting all of the newest gadgets, but I can sit in my living room, typing on my wireless keyboard (as I am doing right now), surf the Internet or do research, print wirelessly to the printer on the other side of the house, while watching TV on my LCD TV that is receiving a signal froma satellite system. If I get up, I can connect to the world via my laptop computer, or my Dell pocket PC, or my Droid. I can go outside to work in the yard and can carry my entire music collection on my small Sansa music player. I can get in my car and explore the world without ever getting lost.

What am I getting at? I think back over the last thirty years of my life (I'm 40), and the technology - the things that are out there that have become such a regular part of life - have changed so much! My son turns 10 next week. What will technology be like thirty years from now when he is 40?

There are exciting times ahead for him, and I'm jealous over the stuff we know nothing about now, but will be a part of his life then.