Where's it gone?

The Internet's been in a bit of a mess recently; Google lost several hours of folks’ emails when an engineer tweaked the wrong line and the irritating “root-x” hacker exploit continues to damage unsecured servers.

It not only reveals our worrying dependence on the internet and its functionaries, but it really does make you wonder why the aptly named web has gained such a hold over our lives. Yet the convergence of domestic technology - which is advancing at a truly frightening rate - means that in five years time we won’t have to leave our homes at all, unless we need to use an outside loo.

There’s a curious irony in the way that the most successful technological innovation of the era - the mobile ‘phone - uses the very technology which brings the world to us, thus rendering the mobile bit of the equation potentially obsolete.

Think about it: at the moment we don’t need to go shopping - for almost anything. Yesterday we ordered a Which? best buy, top-of-the range pressure washer and it arrived an hour ago, for a total cost of £64.00 less than Argos would have charged us to pick it up. Our grocery shopping is delivered by Tesco or Sainsbury (whichever has the best offer on Scotch:-), anything we need can be delivered - often for nothing - and we maintain touch with the outside world by email or telephony. The emergence of ubiquitous satellite providers means anyone in the UK can receive enough channels to keep even the most ardent couch potato quietly growing roots while Freesat and its cohorts are marching steadily towards the new era of Tv-on-demand through the internet, and most new TVs now come replete with enough connections to make a nuclear launch-code operator die contented. The TV - long lambasted as the sole reason for teenage pregnancies, alcohol-fuelled violence and Eastenders - is moving inexorably towards the focal point of the house; where once it was the kitchen, as the kiddies clamoured to help bake cakes and make fudge, now the TV - almost magically acting as a social magnet - draws the members of the household together, providing a malign avuncular influence over its denizens.

But as all household gadgets acquire the ability to hook up to the internet, and the ‘fridge calls the repair company to let them know it’s about to break down, we might look back fondly on the days when the milk was left downstairs in a bowl of water and Radio was something only the neighbours had.