The ecology ten years from now...

Good piece in today's Observer. Excerpt:
"The year is 2016 and Chloe is 16. She keeps up with text and video messages by unrolling a paper-thin screen wherever she is. A tiny camera beams images from her day to a video diary on her personal website, which interacts with those of her friends.
Chloe has never heard of CDs or DVDs. When it comes to television, she knows she can access millions of hours of programmes, in high-definition picture quality, whenever she likes. She is the viewer of the future and her choice is, literally, without limit.

In Chloe's world, there are no TV listings because there are no TV schedules, and there are no TV schedules because there are no TV channels. Instead, sitting at her PC, she logs on to a website geared specifically to teenage girls. She watches programmes sold there by independent production companies, or even fellow teenagers - not broadcasting, but narrowcasting.

Gone are the days of racing home because she forgot to set the video; gone, too, the chat with friends about last night's universally watched big episode. The notion that television should require her presence at a particular time or place seems quaint, as does the concept of the commercial break. Chloe has come to expect TV on demand. Television's role in British culture has almost entirely changed."

Link: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,1729018,00.html