The Third Half
The teacher gestured and the next question in the lesson hovered in front of the white board. The dark letters were as clear as if they’d been printed on the air.
“What is the capital of New New York?” she asked.
A dozen holodesk lights flashed in response.
“Yes, Amily?”
The little girl grinned and lisped, “New New York City.”
“Correct, thank you.” Another gesture, another question. “In what year did Google establish the first colony on G-Earth? Marius.”
“2247,” the boy replied.
“Very good.” Her gaze fell on another boy in the back of the room, slouched in his chair. His eyes fluttered open periodically as he struggled to stay awake. She pursed her lips.
“Danel, what are the principal exports of Neu Deutschland?”
He sat bolt upright. “The principal exports are coffee and tea making facilities and a large number of people who have been in the business of the company and—”
“Enough,” the teacher interrupted. “Please, turn off your autocomplete function and pay attention.”
Danel blushed. “Sorry.”
Tags: #Fridayflash, Micro fiction, Microfic
AHAHAHAHAA! Planet Google! Awesome! And you know, I could use that autocomplete feature, frankly.
Very cool idea, well done, and GREAT job of world-building in a teeny-tiny space! Fantastic!
Oh, just great! Hah! G-Earth? So only have to wait 237 years before it becomes a reality.
Nicely done. 😀
This was neat. Quick n’ cool. Planet Google – that’s to funny. I love the idea of “autocomplete”. I could totally use that right now. 🙂
Jim
I just had to word count this out of curiosity. 170 words?! How did you manage to cram so much information into such a tiny space? That is impressive!
Instant Google Learning! Haha. That was great, and quick – like Instant Google.
Ha, well done! But I wonder if it will happen sooner. 🙂
Autocomplete– wish I’d had that in school. Great story!
Autocomplete! Just what I need! Fun story.
Funny! Like everybody else, I loved the Google establishing G-Earth and an autocomplete. 🙂
Hehe. Adorable. 🙂
Nice. Only problem with autocomplete is that their only as good as your first few letters. I wondered how well Danel prepped his auto-complete. I liked that they’d named everything thing New _____.
Hahaha, nice work. Really good fun. Gotta retweet this one.
I guess with that type of insta-learning available, school’s only purpose is to teach the kids socialization. Lots of cool stuff in this, and as others have said, in such a short space. Excellent! Very well done!
Thanks, all. I read a comment by a Google employee about how they wanted this to become the third half of our brains and I couldn’t pass it up. Have you played with their Scribe tool yet? It makes for some terribly interesting stuff.
Loved it, Valerie. G-Earth. Awesome!
Google earth? What a future! Loved it.
Imagine if he had predictive text on that too? That could open a massive can of worms! But I do love the idea of Google having their own colony. What’s next, Planet Starbucks?
Oh how funny. That autocomplete could come in handy some days, you know, when kids are asking for help with homework.
I agree: astonishing amount of detail and images in such few words.
How depressing to think we will still be as obsessed with hot drinks in 250 years. Is there a New Starbucks on G-World? Have they figured out how to put the coffee taste into hot foam yet?
I feel like this is something that would revolutionize the way school is taught, honestly. Less rote memorization but there would still be a need to learn how to filter through the data to find the correct answers. After that, hopefully the emphasis would be on synthesizing information and using logic. Pipe dream? Perhaps.
Who knows where coffee will be in that time. Pills? Shots? Patches? It’s been around a long while in its current form, so maybe it’ll stay that way. Even Picard still asks the replicator machine thing for tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
as amazing as autocomplete is, try the year 3127 with retrochronocorrect…