Locked in space through a camera

Telecommunications today is a mind-boggling experience. You can say all we have to do today is get inside the computer and live in cyberspace. A bit far-fetched, after all we are still humans.

But technological advancements have increased to such a level that we are living virtual reality through the internet, telecommunications, 4G cellular phones, ipads, iphones, 3D and 4D cinemas.

The list is endless and moving ahead at the speed of a bullet. Technology is today part-and-parcel of our lives, going into the minutest details of how we live, how we converse and interact, make friends, and even control our relationships and work experiences.

We are certainly not becoming robots, but the small gadgetry we are carrying to help us carry with our everyday lives, is making us very nearly-like robots, but machines that can smile and with feelings. Thank God, the numbness has not yet entered our bodies. Mind you, and as you will know, chips and other techs can be inserted in our various body parts.

Somebody once told me that one day you will able to talk to your friend, acquaintance and relative and see their faces in front of you. He said while you talk on the phone, you can see them and interact that way.

Back then I couldn't fathom that nor comprehend it. What, were we going to go inside the lines and cables and see each other at the other end and say hi. It sounded silly. Impossible I thought, but what I didn't realize was virtual reality, cyber space and virtual dimensions were only few blocks down the road.

Two decades later this is exactly what happened, still I needed a couple of ticks to register my thoughts. One day I looked into the computer and here she was, my sister and kids moving around on the small screen as if they are in a situation comedy show, the one we see frequently on television.

She was in small town in Virginia we were in Amman. We were locked in space cyber. With a camera built in the computer we were conversing as if this was the most natural thing in the world and had been doing it for a long time.

Actially, this would be the first time I was seeing my sister and her kids, thousands of miles way across the Atlantic. In fact the technology had been developed in the 1990s, but I hadn't gotten around to using till years later, and with everyone of our relatives hooked in seeing each other in cyberspace.

So you could say I was out of date, but seeing my sister for the first time in her kitchen with her kids moving around was truly amazing. "Ghosh, they are there," I thought with wonder. What made things real as well, she was talking to us while she was getting dinner ready. One eye was on the pots and pans while the other on the computer screen. Her little son in the background was trying to push in and mimic.

Theoretically and practically, though I am no whizz kid, if the international lines are clear, you can talk to as many people as possible and see them at the same time while your computer becomes the rallying point of different conversations and faces.

In fact this is what my daughter was doing when she was connecting with Virginia and my other sister in Dubai, taking a holiday there, but still can't resist the daily chinwags.

Seeing those people around is giving me a new perspective on multimedia technology, and how we can use the Internet more positively to get closer together. With connection lines becoming so cheap, you can talk for hours, and just keep going, mind you there is a bad side to that as you all know.