Sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking that we are living in a technological utopia. We’re connecting up the world with networks and devices; Google and Facebook want to build high altitude platforms for the internet using balloons or unmanned aircraft and every week there’s a new promise that graphene is going to change everything.
It helps, then, to be brought back down to earth occasionally by a reminder that whatever amazing thing we invent, there is always someone who will make it look like it’s been deployed by the Keystone Cops…
Witness global superstar Will.I.Am on Saturday night prime time TV failing to make his whizzy new smartwatch actually work. That’s the kind of behaviour for which the now universally accepted term ‘fail’ was invented!
Then we have the “you couldn’t make it up” scenario reported by The Register of a runner apparently felled near the finishing line by a “hacked” photography drone. Hacked? Really? Not just a loss of control covered up by a lame excuse in a bid to avoid being sued..?
Never would we suggest that taking the Bold course was wrong (!), but it doesn’t hurt sometimes to have a reminder of fallibility that keeps our collective feet on the ground.
