April 9

Moving Toward a “Dr. One” Future

Capture

Your driver’s license photo is becoming a part of your Story across the country.

It’s just one example of the exploding use of facial recognition technology in law enforcement, and it’s raising major concerns among U.S. lawmakers and privacy advocates. – ALEX PASTERNACK,  Fast Company

In a recent article by Fast Company titled “The Vast, Secretive Face Database That Could Instantly ID You In A Crowd,” the use of your photo, a requirement for every vehicle driving citizen in the U.S., is challenging privacy rights. Sound familiar? If you’ve read “Dr. One” it should.

 

March 4

ZAPPAR AR (Augmented Reality)

ZAPPAR AR (Augmented Reality)

My new novel explores technology 25 years in the future. The book, itself, incorporates augmented reality on its cover and on the pages inside. I discovered Zappar and its AR technology while writing it last summer and the use of AR and its possibilities is amazing. I was creating my own AR within a single day and it can be seen by pointing any mobile device at the book. The book trailer, posted in my feed below, pops off the cover and hovers. But this is only a small fraction of the capabilities of their tech. I am now exploring 3D 360 possibilities for a…..sequel.

ZAPPAR.com

January 29

Novel Inspiration: George Orwell’s “1984”

George Orwell's In many ways, “Dr. One” is a revision to George Orwell’s classic, minus the totalitarian, political dystopian plot that revolves around Big Brother’s desire to rewrite history and create a false world to control the masses.

In “Dr. One,” which takes place in 2041, there is no attempt to revise information by the invisible controlling forces buried in the depths of the Net. Orwell did not see a world so intimately connected, a world in which the idea of content control has been challenged by the millions who have access to create, revise and publish to the masses.

In the 25 years leading up to “Dr. One”, freely giving up personal information, combined with incredibly sophisticated data-mining software, has created a society in which your stored digital life becomes your token for successful living. In “Dr. One”, this is known as your Story.

Control in the future, according to “Dr. One”, is data…about you and the things you love and hate, the friends you claim and their self-reported histories, the places you visit that are recorded by surveillance systems, your ancestry data that either you or someone else has added to the Net, your financial, health, U.S. Citizenry status and so much more. Stop and think, right now, about how much of you is stored for eternal access. Think about the exponential growth this will take in the next 25 years.

In 2041, the idea associated with Big Brother remains but there is no interest in rewriting who you are. Control, is knowing everything about you and then using that information to manipulate the truth.

Perhaps, “Dr. One” can be understood as a prequel to the futures such as are depicted in “1984” or “Gattaca” or “Blade Runner”. It is a vision of a society just before it evolves, dystopian or not, toward the next step in the use of your stored, immediately accessible, digital life.

 

January 20

(Almost) Everything I Learned About Writing Novels, I Learned as a Computer Programmer

Mastering the language of storytelling is full of challenge. Besides honing skills in word usage, grammar and pacing, crafting believable characters that live inside believable plots is paramount to achieving an engaging, page-turner.

But the logic built within a novel in particular (because of its length), mimics that which software programs are created. Thinking in algorithms gives a novelist incredible plotting advantage.

The life of a programmer is filled with possibilities. After all, the world pretty much runs on the talents of these individuals. But that’s not the “possibilities” I am referring to, here. I’m talking conditionals. If, then, else statements. While wends. Given X, what are all the possible ways that a person could arrive at Y? And for the program to work, each possible journey toward Y must make sense or the outcome is garbage.

Just like story plots. Characters are the Xs thrust by the writer on paths toward conflict and revelation and change. Like a software algorithm, possible tributaries abound and the author’s mind as the story develops is not so unlike a programmer writing code.

If you create mind maps for your novel plot lines like I do, you’re thinking like a programmer. If one drawn thought bubble suddenly gives birth to lines of connected children all begging for attention and possibility, you’re thinking like a programmer. Not all of the bubble children will live. The if-then conditionals running through your head must eliminate everything that cannot, logically, equal Y.

Have you ever written a software program…even a simple one using the code of the web—HTML? The process can be frustrating, time-consuming, emotionally draining and full of excitement once everything works just the way you’d hoped it would.

Inspiration for my female protagonist, Phoenix Messenger, in the novel “Dr. One”, comes from my decades of experience as a programmer that began so many years ago at Arizona State University. Her code will change the world.

And I am so envious.

 

December 31

Recently added to the “Dr. One” Dictionary

  • New Pitt (New Pittsburgh) – One of many self-sustaining New Cities developed in the 2030s in the wake of the 2029 Aquifer Attacks. New Pitt is home to the largest technology industries in the U.S., including mobile device and virtual reality giant V.CELL. New Pitt, in a 2035 trade agreement, transports fresh water from its mega water mills to drought-stricken areas of the country.For more, check out the Complete “Dr. One” Dictionary

 

December 28

Certainties in Life


We’ve all heard the old adage: There are Two Things Certain in Life: Death and Taxes. Now, more than 230 years after Benjamin Franklin’s timely reflection, our new world requires the addition of one more certainty…
Death and Taxes and Immediate Access to Your Entire Life.

(In my novel, Dr. One, this is known as your Story).

Of course, of the three, only one is certain. You can decide what to do about the rest. Pay taxes or not. Choose to place on the Net the tidbits of your relationships, including everything you love and are interested in, to outspoken, free speech platitudes about what you dislike and the entities you believe are responsible for your bad feelings. You are responsible for entering (or allowing online data to be connected to) personal characteristics, likes and dislikes, friends, and followers — and you have the choice to enter financial data, purchase methods, ancestry data, health concerns, and so many keywords that software programs love.

But, like paying taxes or not, all choices lead to consequences. Go ahead and accept the biometric access technology on many of the new mobile devices. Stick your thumb on the Home button…it’s so much easier than remembering complex, hard to hack, passwords. Allow that unique part of you to be consumed by the Net. Better yet, send your DNA into the cloud. Absolutely nothing can go wrong with that (Ever considered a future such as in Gattaca?). Your DNA is protected in ways that no hackers can access. (Ever heard of Ashley Madison?).

What data do you choose to add to your digital Story? Think about software programs that are so intelligent that everything that can be digitally accessed can be analyzed to the nth-degree. Right now, your Story is used (mostly) to sell you stuff and you have few “easy” choices to manage this “intrusion” beyond not entering the Net in the first place.

Choosing to stay away from the “the vibrations of interconnectivity” distances a person from the new world where success equals immediate access to not only the history of Benjamin Franklin, but more importantly, to you.

“The Vibrations of Interconnectivity” ==> Phrase coined by Dr. One to describe the electromagnetic radiation emitted from all of the technology on earth.

You don’t have to log in, ever! But, really, do you have a choice? What are the consequences? Your decisions will define this third certainty.

Excerpt from “Dr. One“:

“How do we really understand our own existence?” [Dr. One] had often contemplated aloud. “Human experience is no longer explored through the laborious interactions with nature but is, instead, dictated via all the devices that have come to enslave a lazy, fear-filled population.”