Man’s got no place to
hide, because technology’s quietly shadowing him everywhere.
First there was nothing. Then came the fig leaf that clung
on for centuries. And just when man decided not to give a fig about it anymore,
technology took a leaf out of Lex Luthor’s creations – and radiation blocking
underwear was created.
No, seriously. It’s already available abroad and could soon
cover the entire globe. To understand the demand for this product, we need to
go back in time to Hollywood, because research has shown that 97.5% of all
people understand technology only when it is demonstrated in an English movie,
is set in the future and features either an action hero or Keanu Reeves.
The year was 1990, when a Schwarzenegger-starrer titled
Total Recall was released. It showed the future with total body scanners that
bombarded the human body with powerful X-ray blasts. People would walk past a
screen and their skeletons would be seen from the other side.
Then came the era of biometrics, made popular in films like Mission
Impossible, Gattaca and Minority Report, where an individual's retina,
fingertips, DNA, molars, premolars and canines – in short, everything except
his ID Card - were scanned to ascertain his identity. Another system of
tracking made popular by Bond movies like On Her Majesty's Secret Service and
Casino Royale, and sci-fi and action movies like Demolition Man, The Day the
Earth Stood Still and Safe House was RFID.
Things could have stopped there, but since man's curiosity
constantly gets the better of him, he moved on from writing Software For
Dummies to writing software for dummies. And the result is available in every
major store worldwide, in the form of store mannequins - with a difference.
These are as inquisitive as we are, and constantly seek to collect information
about the shoppers.
They have a camera for an eye, are installed with facial
recognition software and record everything, including the way you looked at the
attractive woman in the other corner of the store and walked up to her on the
pretext of examining shirts in the nearby rack, and to your utter
disappointment, found that the shirts were actually neatly folded aprons and
the pretty woman, another mannequin. Thus vital information is gathered about
you – the mannequins have noted that you not only have a roving eye, but also myopic
vision that can't see distant objects very clearly. So the next time you visit
a mall, a bouncer grabs you at the car park, sets right that glad eye and then
whisks you away to the nearest Lawrence & Mayo where your short sight is
rectified. Needless to say, you pay for both and the world of retail remains
eternally grateful to technology.
Unfortunately for you, the evolution of this peek-a-boo
technology is not likely to stop here. The next step could well be a
combination of some of the technologies mentioned above. Consider a scenario
where these mannequins are fitted with the x-ray scanners seen in Total Recall.
(Incidentally, this technology actually became a reality when such scanners
were installed in airports. Most passengers felt outraged that their skeletons
were being ogled at, leading to such full-body scans at airports being
appropriately named terminal exposure.) Besides laughing all the way to the
bank, the retail stores fitted with these mannequins would also be giggling
their way to the security room where scantily clad images of customers will be
displayed on multiple monitors.
Without an iota of doubt, there will be immense pressure
from various bodies (pun not intended) to stop such scans. And if they have it their
way, there's only one thing that various leading innerwear brands can do with their
gargantuan piles of radiation blocking underwear in every store - total recall.
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