Twitter & The Time Machine Paradigm

As I finally managed to use the word "paradigm" in a post title, I'm sure it will be read by millions of highly intelligent people so I'm really really going to be very cautious with what comes next.

The advent of social networks and the multiplication of tweets, facebook posts, instagram pictures, tumblr entries etc. have dramatically changed the nature of the Internet by speeding up its evolution and relevance.

I tweet, you tweet, we all tweet. We leave digital artifacts of our lives at any moment and from anywhere. This, in turn, lets us interact with other people though we may never meet them in real life (IRL). There is no doubt, in my mind, that this has a profound impact on the way we relate to the world and one another.

Have you ever realized that Twitter & social networks in general constitute time machines? What better way will future digital archeologists have in order to understand the past than to go back in time by exploring its tweets? How intriguing can it be to just go back to the twitter timeline at the time of a historic event so as to cease the thoughts of the many?

Think of this in terms of "what if Napoleon had had a Twitter account?"

Time Machine And Disk Utility Conflict

I recently stumbled across a bug in the Time Machine utility in Mac OS X. It seems that whenever you run, through the Disk Utility application,  a "verify disk" command, Mac OS X is subsequently unable to backup changes in Time Machine. The worst part is that Time Machine will continue to work just as usual but it will simply not backup changes made on your source HD to the destination HD. The only solution I found to this problem is to make a whole new Time Machine backup. As it unfortunately defeats the purpose of using Time Machine, I'm basically back to cloning my hard drive using Super Duper.

Apple is aware of the problem but no fix has been made available yet.

The Future Of Apple

As Apple is about to release iOS 4.2 to the general public, rumors are spreading as to what the next iPhone might be about. Most rumors were, until now, about the implementation of CDMA technology but it seems that the next iPhone might also integrate an RFID chip and/or some kind of proximity field technology. This is rumored to allow users to make any Mac their own by creating a proximity link between any Mac and their iPhone. The former would, then use whatever settings are saved on the iPhone or the MobileMe account of the user to allow them to use this computer as their own. If MobileMe users had the ability to sync all their info to the clouds, this could, indeed, become reality. Let's not forget that Apple heavily invested not so long ago in a server farm and let's not forget Steve Jobs' comment to SugarSync CEO during a conference "Yeah, I know you guys" and this would all make sense.

By using this technology, every iDevice owner would have the ability to use any Apple computer as their own, using their settings, files and apps that are stored in the clouds (a major leap forward compared to the poor cloud storage possibilities of MobileMe at this time). All their info would be backed up online making the process of regular and boring hard drive backups history.

The new iPhone is also supposed to be used as a payment device. Since it can already unlock cars using the new BMW app, why not bring it even more into the future by allowing it to open building and apartment doors?

There you have it, the iDevice will be at the center of everyone's lives, rendering wallets, keys and money as we know them obsolete.

I have already contacted a locksmith to get rid of my front door lock, as I will be using my iPhone to open the door from now on (and while I wait for this functionality to be implemented, I will camp in the streets outside my apartment building). The next thing that Apple should implement is a way, in case one loses their iDevice or it is stolen, to wipe it off remotely even if it does not have a network connection or if it is off. This would quite easy to implement through the use of a time machine that could bring the user back to the date & time their iDevice left their possession. It would then be easy to wipe it off and even prevent it from being stolen.

When Apple completes this, my friend Steve (whom I've never met) will become the ruler of the world and the universe and we will all live by his rules! Can't wait for that to happen!