Project forward to a future where Programmable Matter or Holographic Imaging are commonplace and it is normal to walk around with programmable hardware on or in your body, sensing your actions and your immediate environment and feeding your senses of sight, sound and touch (smell and taste may be added - to taste). If you're female, I'm afraid you'll have to be male for a minute or two; sorry.
Friday night in the office, you have 40 minutes to get to the
EuroStar terminal at Waterloo on your way to meeting your
partner in Paris for the weekend. You look up from your watch
at The Boss sitting opposite in the meeting room. Merely
painting petals around his face may make you feel better,
but won't get you out on time.
Your partner 'taps' you and you invite her in to see your handiwork. She laughs, then switches point-of-view to appear in front of you. She knows you can't speak back to her and takes advantage of the situation to call you a series of abusive but endearing names (some in French) - then tells you to get the hell out of the office NOW if you want to see her at all this weekend. She disappears.
You notice the Boston Man next to you has disappeared. In each of these meetings, he always has his back to you when you walk in the meeting room, so you always take that opportunity to punch his image through with the right fist, before sitting down and greeting him politely. Anyway, the main cause of over-running has gone, so it's time to wrap up.
Running down to your car, you pass a colleague. You say 'Hi - gotta run!' as you approach him, and a rather poor image of him appears in his place as you pass, floating ghost-like in front of you. You carry on talking with this image: 'Going to Paris tonight and I'm late - I'll talk on Monday about that idea of yours'. The image 'smiles' (you hate that) and you hear 'fine - have a good weekend' as it winks and vanishes.
In the car, you quickly try out a few routes to the Waterloo terminal (great practice for driving through London streets at 330mph without killing anyone) and find a back-route that's apparently undiscovered and not too busy right now. The car averages 33mph and it seems like torture, but you get to the station's new car terminal on time and join the queue to board.
This is your first time on EuroStar, so the train doesn't recognise you. You select your carefully hand-crafted 'Official' identification to the train as you board. Luckily, it accepts this (some Government departments insist on your 'Full Official' identity when you enter, which draws in nasty details about that, unfortunate, incident five years back).
Your car is surrounded by screens. Last time you used your Official identity, you were waiting three hours to see a doctor. You passed the time back then on The Perfect Beach - your partner's and your own creation. Now, the familiar sea sounds and relaxing scenes appear around you on the screens. Aaah! Welcome to the weekend!
You switch from the train's screen view of the beach (a little strange seeing it through the car's windows), to your internal car view, which is much better quality than it or the personal view, anyway. Identifying yourself to the car now as 'Official', The Perfect Beach surrounds you in rich colours and sounds. The car has already switched to the much faster train network connections, which you notice.
As you stroll up The Perfect Beach, you see a figure ahead on a rock. It can only be one person, because this is a totally private environment. She waves. You remember to unmask (switch from Official to Personal identity). As you approach, she says 'So you made it onto the train, then?'. 'Yup'. 'I was hoping you'd choose our beach to meet in.' You don't have the heart to tell her that it was just where you happened to be before.
After some minor chat, you suggest having a tour of her Paris hotel room. She invites you in and you are surrounded by the room images, as seen by her. She walks around, looks out of the window, walks into the bathroom - and you see her actual face for the first time since the morning. You make a joking comment and she flicks you out. You land in the hotel room next to her. Her artificial image is not quite as attractive as the real thing, and you tell her so!
You joke about sneaking in to the hotel without paying (your Personal identity is viewing the personal room of an occupant, but since she invited you in, indeed into her personal space, you're on firm ground). She says she's going out for a walk, and see you shortly. You have a quick look around the hotel and walk out to the front. This makes you want to drive around Paris, so you tell your car to start a trip from this hotel, and to use the train's screens, for better realism.
After picking some interesting locations to visit later, and curious about your progress on the journey, you identify yourself to the train as Anonymous-Traveller. This is a new, transient identity which has no previous use or previous environment to take you to, like Official did. So the train has to start you off somewhere, and it chooses a view on the train itself, as you were hoping.
The train's screen is replaced by a new view showing a glass train. Stretching ahead are cars and passengers, all around is ochre-looking translucent earth, above which it is possible to see little trees and houses going past. You're underground, now, but still in England, in Kent.
You spot an interesting-looking farmhouse up above, so freeze the action to allow you to zoom in on the location. Unfreezing, you can see that it is, in fact for sale, since there are full tour images available, and a sign apparently stuck in the ground with the name of the owner on it. Heading 'in' to this sign, you're transported to a bare, office-looking environment with a figure in it. You 'tap' the figure, and she comes to life after a few seconds and offers you a seat. You discuss the property and she hands you a prospectus document.
Realising that you can't keep this document with a transient identity (the train is 'underwriting' your existence, here), you try to unmask to a Business identity, but get the usual warning that you are exposing yourself to potential intrusion by a third party (the train would be the conduit for your Business identity's interaction and could in theory intercept and use this privelege against you). Even though there's no real privacy risk, you still opt to transfer back to the car to carry on this interaction. The farmhouse seller's office jumps back from the train's screens to the car's.
Now the document is transferred properly to your Business identity's ownership and you can keep it (it physically ends up located in your workplace - the source of your Business identity - courtesy of your trusty car). If you switched out of this identity right now, the next time you used it, you'd end up right back in this office, so you make your goodbyes and revert back to the last place used under the identity: the on-ramp of EuroStar, where you arrived at 330mph!
You leave this view of the car's and switch identity back to Anonymous-Traveller again, which luckily has not yet been expired by the train. This returns you to the underground view via the train's screens, which is when you discover you are now under water and approaching France. Soon, you're at France's border.
Again, your identity is challenged - only this time, not by the train, but by the 'country' itself, as represented by devices outside the train. Again, you manage to get away with your Official identity. Now, France knows you are inside. You may be tracked further, and certainly when you leave.
Extra content: jointly experiencing film, right-to-read original show, right-to-write participate, art, nano fab, leccie paper, programming and customising (constraints and declarations), building (like 2ndLife), collaboration, shopping/shooting/sharing.
Your partner 'taps' you and you invite her in to see your handiwork. She laughs, then switches point-of-view to appear in front of you. She knows you can't speak back to her and takes advantage of the situation to call you a series of abusive but endearing names (some in French) - then tells you to get the hell out of the office NOW if you want to see her at all this weekend. She disappears.
You notice the Boston Man next to you has disappeared. In each of these meetings, he always has his back to you when you walk in the meeting room, so you always take that opportunity to punch his image through with the right fist, before sitting down and greeting him politely. Anyway, the main cause of over-running has gone, so it's time to wrap up.
Running down to your car, you pass a colleague. You say 'Hi - gotta run!' as you approach him, and a rather poor image of him appears in his place as you pass, floating ghost-like in front of you. You carry on talking with this image: 'Going to Paris tonight and I'm late - I'll talk on Monday about that idea of yours'. The image 'smiles' (you hate that) and you hear 'fine - have a good weekend' as it winks and vanishes.
In the car, you quickly try out a few routes to the Waterloo terminal (great practice for driving through London streets at 330mph without killing anyone) and find a back-route that's apparently undiscovered and not too busy right now. The car averages 33mph and it seems like torture, but you get to the station's new car terminal on time and join the queue to board.
This is your first time on EuroStar, so the train doesn't recognise you. You select your carefully hand-crafted 'Official' identification to the train as you board. Luckily, it accepts this (some Government departments insist on your 'Full Official' identity when you enter, which draws in nasty details about that, unfortunate, incident five years back).
Your car is surrounded by screens. Last time you used your Official identity, you were waiting three hours to see a doctor. You passed the time back then on The Perfect Beach - your partner's and your own creation. Now, the familiar sea sounds and relaxing scenes appear around you on the screens. Aaah! Welcome to the weekend!
You switch from the train's screen view of the beach (a little strange seeing it through the car's windows), to your internal car view, which is much better quality than it or the personal view, anyway. Identifying yourself to the car now as 'Official', The Perfect Beach surrounds you in rich colours and sounds. The car has already switched to the much faster train network connections, which you notice.
As you stroll up The Perfect Beach, you see a figure ahead on a rock. It can only be one person, because this is a totally private environment. She waves. You remember to unmask (switch from Official to Personal identity). As you approach, she says 'So you made it onto the train, then?'. 'Yup'. 'I was hoping you'd choose our beach to meet in.' You don't have the heart to tell her that it was just where you happened to be before.
After some minor chat, you suggest having a tour of her Paris hotel room. She invites you in and you are surrounded by the room images, as seen by her. She walks around, looks out of the window, walks into the bathroom - and you see her actual face for the first time since the morning. You make a joking comment and she flicks you out. You land in the hotel room next to her. Her artificial image is not quite as attractive as the real thing, and you tell her so!
You joke about sneaking in to the hotel without paying (your Personal identity is viewing the personal room of an occupant, but since she invited you in, indeed into her personal space, you're on firm ground). She says she's going out for a walk, and see you shortly. You have a quick look around the hotel and walk out to the front. This makes you want to drive around Paris, so you tell your car to start a trip from this hotel, and to use the train's screens, for better realism.
After picking some interesting locations to visit later, and curious about your progress on the journey, you identify yourself to the train as Anonymous-Traveller. This is a new, transient identity which has no previous use or previous environment to take you to, like Official did. So the train has to start you off somewhere, and it chooses a view on the train itself, as you were hoping.
The train's screen is replaced by a new view showing a glass train. Stretching ahead are cars and passengers, all around is ochre-looking translucent earth, above which it is possible to see little trees and houses going past. You're underground, now, but still in England, in Kent.
You spot an interesting-looking farmhouse up above, so freeze the action to allow you to zoom in on the location. Unfreezing, you can see that it is, in fact for sale, since there are full tour images available, and a sign apparently stuck in the ground with the name of the owner on it. Heading 'in' to this sign, you're transported to a bare, office-looking environment with a figure in it. You 'tap' the figure, and she comes to life after a few seconds and offers you a seat. You discuss the property and she hands you a prospectus document.
Realising that you can't keep this document with a transient identity (the train is 'underwriting' your existence, here), you try to unmask to a Business identity, but get the usual warning that you are exposing yourself to potential intrusion by a third party (the train would be the conduit for your Business identity's interaction and could in theory intercept and use this privelege against you). Even though there's no real privacy risk, you still opt to transfer back to the car to carry on this interaction. The farmhouse seller's office jumps back from the train's screens to the car's.
Now the document is transferred properly to your Business identity's ownership and you can keep it (it physically ends up located in your workplace - the source of your Business identity - courtesy of your trusty car). If you switched out of this identity right now, the next time you used it, you'd end up right back in this office, so you make your goodbyes and revert back to the last place used under the identity: the on-ramp of EuroStar, where you arrived at 330mph!
You leave this view of the car's and switch identity back to Anonymous-Traveller again, which luckily has not yet been expired by the train. This returns you to the underground view via the train's screens, which is when you discover you are now under water and approaching France. Soon, you're at France's border.
Again, your identity is challenged - only this time, not by the train, but by the 'country' itself, as represented by devices outside the train. Again, you manage to get away with your Official identity. Now, France knows you are inside. You may be tracked further, and certainly when you leave.
Extra content: jointly experiencing film, right-to-read original show, right-to-write participate, art, nano fab, leccie paper, programming and customising (constraints and declarations), building (like 2ndLife), collaboration, shopping/shooting/sharing.