In "The Music Man", Harold Hill wants to sell musical instruments and uses, among other tools, fear of moral degradation of the young in the new pool hall as a rhetorical tool. The lyrics explain that useful and important tasks such as filling the water cistern and pulling up dandelions will be neglected in favor of pool hall attendance, leading to alcohol consumption and loose interaction between youngsters of opposite genders. Maybe we used to have more basic tasks and less leisure. Today, we have more leisure. In addition, inventors and designers all over the world are deliberately mining every path they can think of to create the newest, latest thing.
Google likes to present some pranks on April Fool's Day. One of this year's is the statement that their email, Gmail, now includes the ability to read and obey gestures. However, at the same time, we are all aware that voice tone, body language and other physical aspects of communication really do matter. As a kid, I learned to shy away from adults who were speaking aloud to nobody around them. I took such behavior to be a sign that such people might be dangerous or unstable. Now, I have learned that adults in the supermarket might not apparently be near anyone but speak aloud through a Bluetooth or other device attached to their ear or somewhere which is transmitting their voice over a telephone circuit.
But as gestures and body language and movement of the hands and other body parts become recognizable by machines, the possibility steadily grows that seeing a shopper suddenly stoop down, stand up, do a backbend and smack himself in the forehead might indicate the man is communicating. He doesn't have a wasp in his shirt. He is confirming a reservation!
