Constant knowledge is only a ring tone away

BY JOE BENNETT

OPINION: The CEO of Goople Inc strolled on to the stage and a hundred thousand pudgy hands rose into the air to clap. The applause surged, waned, surged again.

The CEO, in jeans and a We love to Goople T-shirt, looked over the sea of clapping hands and lank hair and weakly blinking eyes and flesh made pale from sunlight deficiency, and beamed.

As the applause died down, the CEO, whose baptismal name is known only to the board of Goople Inc, and who is referred to by his billions of acolytes merely as Siyo, waited till the silence was utter.

"Dearest beloved Gooplers," he began. The throng stood on tiptoe, sensing that they were at that moment teetering on the crest of the technology wave. For rumours abounded that Siyo was about to announce the launch of a product so revolutionary that the wave would become a tsunami, obliterating all previous technology, smashing it to flotsam. When the tsunami receded Goople Inc would be left standing alone on the shore in the bright dawn of a new age.

"You will have heard," said Siyo, "the rumours that I have undergone surgery. Those rumours were true."

A gasp.

"You may also have heard,' he went on, "rumours that I was gravely ill. Those rumours were untrue." Another gasp, this time of relief. "Indeed," he continued, "I have never been fitter. Nor for that matter, have I ever been happier. For today it is my privilege to launch what I know you've been waiting for, the new generation Goople phone."

At that instant, the auditorium was thrown into darkness, and a golden spotlight picked out Siyo on stage and somehow contrived to bestow him with a halo. From invisible speakers came the anthemic Goople ring tone, swelling till it filled every flabby breast with hope and pride.

Then the beam of the spotlight narrowed and focused not on Siyo's face but on his midriff. Slowly, slowly, astonishingly, Siyo untucked his We Love to Goople T-shirt from the waistband of his jeans to expose a torso taut from the gym. To the right of Siyo's recently shaven belly button was a small, pale scar.

"Gooplers," said Siyo quietly. "I introduce the Goople Direct Implant Constant Knowledge Phone. The phone that is in you. The phone that IS you."

The crowd was agog.

"The Goople Direct Implant Constant Knowledge phone fits snugly where the appendix used to. Wireless of course, it recharges from the electrical activity of circumambient cells. No doubt you will be keen to know the technical specs."

"Yes, yes," bellowed the crowd, "tell us the specs."

"No,' said Siyo, "I am not going to tell you the specs. I am going to email you the specs. Right now."

The auditorium rang with 50,000 simultaneous ring tones - ding dongs, Elvis songs, buzzes, vibrations and Donald Duck noises.

* * *

Fifty thousand pudgy hands reached for their phones and 100,000 wide eyes stared at their screens. "Message from Siyo," said every screen. "Tech specs of the Goople Direct Implant Constant Knowledge phone."

The crowd was too awestruck to applaud.

"I thought the email," said Siyo, "and the email was sent. This phone is the smart organ you have always lacked. The phrase online no longer has meaning. With the Direct Implant Constant Knowledge phone you cannot be off line. It will beam updated news stories to your hippocampus automatically. You will know things without being aware of having learned them. It will amuse you, stimulate you, provide you with consolation and joy and company at all times. It will offer the inside of your head unlimited destructive games to play without the awkward intervention of a screen.

"It will enable you to live perpetually in the places you love best, on Facebook, Beebo, Twitterland, with the community of people that you know and feel most comfortable with. Your flesh, your mind, your loves, your life, thanks to the Goople Direct Implant Constant Knowledge phone, they will all be as one. And it is now on sale alongside the mobile surgical unit in the foyer."

In the stampede for the exit, four Gooplers were crushed to death. Silently, in an underground bunker somewhere in Nevada, the colossal Goople D.I.C.K.phone server erased their web addresses from its database. Nobody missed them. None of their web friends actually knew who they were.

- © Fairfax NZ News