I spent this past weekend in Cape Town. I had a wonderful, if slightly frenetic time, and left with no change to my ongoing impression of the place, which is that it is a beautiful city, but with all that heat making you want to swim, and the sea sucking at the shore the whole way around, it`s a crying shame that the waters are too icy to permit anything more than a quick plunge.
Aside from my problems with the Arctic current, which I accept that no one is going to be able to help me with, I had a lovely time. But it was on my departure to Johannesburg that I had one of those moments of realisation that the world has come a long way.
Having managed to confuse our departure time, my boyfriend, a friend and I found ourselves at the airport with two hours to kill. Unimpressed with the restaurants on offer in domestic departures, we made our way over to (the far slicker) international departures terminal, where we sat down for a pastry and a hot chocolate.
While we were sitting there, we were treated to satellite television. Perhaps what started my thought processes about how futuristic the whole experience was, was the fact that on VH1, they were hosting a segment called "Then and Now" where they showed an old music video from an artist, followed by one of their releases from this year.
We just need to iron out one or two kinks in the technology, and we will be looking at a constantly connected society where information is currency.
Georgina Guedes, editor, ITWeb Brainstorm
My friend pulled out his laptop and started to surf the Web using the wireless network in the terminal. Although at this point the technology wasn`t perfectly compatible so he struggled to browse, the fact that he was almost able to is remarkable.
Then, while we were sitting there generally not saying much, surrounded on all sides as we were by electronic media, an announcement came over the old-school intercom. We were informed that there would be delays in disembarking the Malaysian Airways flight from Buenos Aires, for "operational reasons".
This pricked my interest, because I have been to many airports in my time, and have never heard an announcement apologising for a delay in disembarking. "Operational reasons" also sounded like a euphemism for something far more sinister.
Since the flight was out of South America, I suspected something to do with drug smuggling. We toyed with the possibilities of what could be happening, before abandoning speculation in favour of watching more VH1.
But this morning, when I turned on the radio, the lead story was about a couple being held as suspects in a child trafficking ring after refusing to allow a baby travelling with them to be looked at by a doctor. This apparently happened at Cape Town Airport yesterday, on a flight stopping there on the way from Argentina to China. So that was it, then!
Although I didn`t find the story on either News24 or IOL this morning, I was able to locate it using Google news, which took me to an SABC story. It didn`t take too big a leap of the imagination to predict a future in which I could have searched for the story, while in the airport, using the wireless network, while watching VH1, and had my curiosity satiated there and then.
If I was feeling particularly intrepid, I could even have broken the news on my blog.
The funny thing about this prediction is that it is actually possible now. We just need to iron out one or two kinks in the technology, and we will be looking at a constantly connected society where information is currency.
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