Dr. Dobb's Journal May 2006
In 2006, what tech firm will execute the most spectacular facefault? Chasing the answer to that question, I put out a call to all the top tech journalists: Bob Cravenly, John Markup, Ann Winbad, Dan Spillmor, Esphere Dyson, Robert Squabble, David Vogue. But by deadline time, none of the opiniorati had responded. So, in pursuit of my fallback strategy, I found myself in a Pizza Hut in Chelsea discussing the latest techno-bling with Vanity Slob. (I learned the trick from watching Wild Kingdom: If you need to trap the untamed beast on a tight deadline, you go where it feeds.)
In her trademark pink Kappa tracksuit and gold chains, Vanity educated me on high-tech wristwatches.
"I got this gorgeous fishfinding watch off Jenna but she's a luser cos she actually paid for it cos she got it off the Internet and it's dead hard to nick fings off there."
"A fishfinding watch?" I asked skeptically as we left the Pizza Hut and started cruising shops.
"Don't be givin me evils about this fing wot you know nuffin about," she suggested, and elaborated on the Humminbird Smartcast RF-35, which shows you the configuration of fish down a full fathom five.
"There's this so cool place," she added, "called wristfashion dot com wot's all about like a clock that's just printed on paper but it works and stuff."
My cell phone tootled. It was John Divulgac.
"Hey Swaine, if you still want an opinion on that facefault thing, I got one for ya."
"Opine away, John."
"By the way, facefault is a funny word. So look for a big pratfall from the mainstream media, in which I include you and me. Open-source media is the big thing, supposedly. Blogs, Wikis, whatnot. I dunno. They say Wikipedia is almost as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica. So 80 percent of Britannica is wrong? Sounds about right. I call closed-source, take-it-or-leave-it journalism the Shrinkwrap Press. Feel free to use that. Yeah, I also call Windows Winkrap and Linux Finkrap. Get it? Gotta go."
While I was talking, Vanity had stuffed several watches and a DVD player in her tracksuit.
"You know," I said, "It's customary to pay for items you take from a store."
"Shaddup cos I never done nuthin nor nuthin and anyway it's all rubbish but Janie got a wikkid Venexx watch that sprays perfume but I'm gonna get a NEC VOTOL PK-MV300 perfume-bottle media player and show her cos she's got webbed toes."
I wasn't sure how Janie's toes factored into it, but perfume-themed tech toys seemed to me like definitive bling.
Again the cell sang. This time it was Wallace Mossback, who seemed to feel that Amazon should get the facefault prize for daring to challenge Apple in the online music business. Or not.
"Amazon is unmatched at online sales," he assured me, "but they may be overreaching here. Apple's iPod is beating the pants off Sony's Walkman in Japan, although that doesn't mean Apple would trounce Amazon in a different market. I generally like the idea, but it could be a big mistake. Amazon dot com isn't as attractive as iTunes Music Store and yet it has its own charm. The move could be a smart one, but it would take careful handling."
"In other words, it might work out or it might not?"
"Exactly."
"Thank you for that insight, Wallace."
Vanity poked me in the ribs. "Yeah but no but yeah but no but we're all gonna be cyborgs soon cos there's all this stuff wot makes your body a phone or something." I'd read the Newsweek story about how several Japanese companies were experimenting with systems that use the human body to conduct electricity. You become the network for your gadgets. Trippy.
"Last week," Vanity told me as we reached her Vespa, "I nicked Annie's plastic and ordered a computer bag made of artificial human skin. Check it out." She displayed a photo of the hideous thing. "Looks totally real. I read about it on geekblue dot net. Wikked innit?"
Wicked didn't come close to describing it. I didn't know who made this thing, but I decided that they were now frontrunners in the facefault olympics.