Writerly Websites: Near Future Tech
I was asked, way back when I agreed to be a weekly contributor to Unleaded, to share how I came up with some of the 2070s technology I’m using in the novel Capsule. The simple answer is: tech blogs. I’m addicted to these for reasons other than my writing, but found that addiction helped me shape how far technology might go by 2070 and what directions it might go in. Just to share my two absolute favorites, which I tend to check four or five times a day:
Gizmodo recently became infamous when it bought a prototype iPhone 4G from someone who found it in a bar. While that may be dubious, they do provide nice looks at what is under development in the world of technology.
Engadget enjoys trolling patent filings, and tends to provide at least a paragraph of analysis for each item posted, which means at times they’ll be more in depth than Gizmodo, at times less.
There are some repeat headlines between the sites, and they do use each other as sources on occasion (Engadget was more than happy to pass along what Gizmodo found out about the iPhone, even if they weren’t willing to pony up the $5,000 to buy the device), however I find there’s enough unique items posted in either to make both daily reading.
Of course, the science fiction writer will never get things entirely correct. Most common example of that is the original Star Trek, written in the 1960s set in the 2200s with technology that in some cases looks quaint by 2010 standards. Also remember that science fiction is as much about the present as it is the future you set it in. I chose particularly to have technologies that annoy me advance the farthest while creating my false utopia, things like social networking, the sound-bite-ification of news, and especially the advances made in Augmented Reality, software that exists on some camera phones that can overlay information onto the phone’s view of reality. Really, it all depends on what fits the story, and what works for the writer. But it’s nice to know there are some sites out there that might point you in the right direction.
DL Thurston can be found at http://DLThurston.com/blog Rust is available now for Kindle and ePub readers, coming soon to Sony Reader and iPad.
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