People can be identified by looking into their eyes, listening to their voices, or reading their finger tips. While scanners now read grocery prices, we ll soon be able to pay for purchases by placing our finger tips on the glass. In the next century, it is conceivable that every child will be biometrically identified at birth. Who they are will go into a national computer system, so that wherever they go they will be able to buy with a hello, a wink of an eye, or a swipe of the thumb. The enablers of the technological leap forward during the last decade have been digitalization of data and rapid improvement of the computer.
Digitalization is how computers work.
Small packets of discrete data are compacted into bits and bytes which fly along sequentially, like single-file soldiers marching double time. In earlier analog systems, data flows in continuous, variable and wavy streams, like water in a river. The variability reduces speed and quality. Digital TV broadcasting and communications satellites are replacing analog systems with the hope of furnishing theater-quality pictures and surround sound in living rooms. Digital cameras provide instant pictures that download to a computer and viewed in a heartbeat.