ETCETERA

NIGHTCAP

ech Time

By Harry Kirsbaum

T

wo big tech news stories landed with a
thud this month.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk posited a

theory at a conference that self-driving
cars would eventually make DWH (Driv-
ing While Human) a criminal act.
Musk knew what rage his comment
would evoke and quickly distanced him-
self and his company from the statement
by tweeting,"To be clear, Tesla is strongly
in favor of people being allowed to drive
their cars and always will be
He was prognosticating, not hoping,
and he aimed the comment toward
Congress.
Although his electric cars are inciting
enough in some circles, including the
land of the Big Three automakers, he
might incite another reason to hate the
denizens of the Beltway.
And to all those lawmakers even
perusing the thought of someday
outlawing humans driving cars, please
take note.
I once lived three blocks from the
Woodward Dream Cruise, an annual
car lovers'event that draws millions of
people from around the world to see

classic American cars cruis-
ing down a classic American
avenue.
I've seen people sitting in
chairs on the curb for hours watching
classic cars inch along Woodward Ave.
I've seen people showing off their
classic cars in parking lots along Wood-
ward months in advance of the actual
Dream Cruise.
Believe me when I tell you: Do you
want to see thousands of people storm-
ing the Mall in Washington, D.C., carrying
signs that read,"We Don't Need No
Stinkin'Robots," "I'm Not Ridin' Bitch in
My Own Car"or "Keep Your Hands Off
My Stick Shift"?
Want to see gun racks on '56 Chevys,
and drivers screaming "Charger!" before
they assault the Capitol Building in their
Corvette Stingrays? Then go ahead.
Make their day.
The second tech story, which an-
nounced the April 24 launch of the
Apple Watch, invoked memories of my
past.
In the early 1970s, before we had to
explain the term "clockwise"to anyone

who doesn't have gray
hair, I worked at Hatfield
Jewelers in downtown Flint.
I witnessed the introduction of
the Pulsar LED (Light Emitting Diode)
watches that changed the face of time-
keeping forever.
Imagine a large block of red quartz
with two small buttons on the side,
attached by an expandable metal band
that fits around the wrist and showed
the time numerically in tiny specks of red
dots, and you have the first Casio digital
watch.
It was big, ugly, expensive and people
would come into the store just to watch
the seconds tick off. The LED led the
way to the common LCD (Liquid Crystal
Display) watch introduced by Seiko in
1973 that we use today, with a growing
list of features that at one time included
a calculator.
As Apple Stores in malls around the
country move their velvet ropes from
the storage area to the front of the
store in preparation for throngs of
adapters"who can't wait to place the
next piece of tech equipment on their

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bodies; I wonder why.
Why put another big, ugly, expensive
(starting at $350) thing on your wrist
when you have the exact same device in
your pocket? Do you really need another
buzzing, vibrating thing to tell you that
you have another email, phone call,
Tweet, appointment, Facebook message,
only on a 32mm screen?
Is this just an answer to the ever-
expanding size of the iPhone?
Will Zoolander put his tiny phone
away and sport a $17,000 gold Apple
Watch in the sequel?
It's rude enough that we jump at a
smartphone in our pocket or purse, and
people try to disguise it as best they can
when it happens. But it will be impos-
sible to ignore it when it goes off on
someone's wrist.
I can only guess what might happen
during a meeting at Apple headquarters
in Cupertino with all those executives
trying to brainstorm and their watches
going off every 30 seconds. Will Tim
Cook himself say,"Keep the damn things
in your desk when we're having a meet-
ing! They're too annoying!"

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52 April 2015 I

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