With the inundation of technology in our daily lives, it’s not often that we look back and see how far we’ve come.

“Have you ever borrowed a book… from thousands of miles away? Bought concert tickets from a cash machine? Carried your medical history in your wallet? Or attended a meeting in your bare feet? Have you ever watched the movie you wanted to, the minute you wanted to? Learned special things from far-away places? You will, and the company that will bring it to you, AT&T…”
These are tag lines that were used in a commercial campaign by AT&T back in 1993. I personally remember watching these commercials as a teenager, and thinking, “I wonder if these things will ever happen in my lifetime?” It seemed so far-fetched at the time, but now you CAN check out books from thousands of miles away.

We may still have many years to go before we get our flying cars, but we have endless choices out there when it comes to getting our hands on new technology.

16 years ago, who would have ever thought that we would have the technology to be constantly connected with all of our closest friends and family? If something major happens in my life, I can notify everyone important to me in a matter of seconds by way of Twitter or Facebook.

Back in the early ‘90s, the big development was the convenience of the compact disk. They were still a pain to carry around, and any audiophile worth their merit could never carry around an expansive enough disk selection to keep them in a constant rotation for more than several hours. Now we have our iPods that fit nicely into the smallest of pockets and allow us to carry around several days’ worth of music.

In 1990, the first connection from a web browser to an internet server was made, and it took several years for the technology to be used in average households. My family didn’t get internet service until 1998, 2 years after I had graduated High School.

Remember dial-up? I do, and I don’t miss those days at all. Now our connections are so fast, that we can have live video streams and have face to face conversations with people on the other side of the planet. It’s only going to get faster.

Considering all of the new technology we’ve acquired in the last 15 years, I wouldn’t doubt if we have flying cars before I die.