toclair@ittimes.co.kr
When Tiffany had a chance to choose between love and ambition, she let go of her love and set aside the life that marriage could offer a woman. She was eighteen. Another eighteen years passed while she chased after her ambition, a vision to live a life self-sufficient, well off, and successful. Eighteen years she walked out of the house at 7:30 in the morning and came home at midnight, sometimes even had to do make up work at home until 4 in the morning to meet the ideal future she had in mind. Her one and only day off, Sunday, passed by with the blink of an eye after she cleaned the house and did the laundry. But that is all she did eighteen years for a dream of having breakfast in the U-City.
Tiffany's father was one of the architects who participated in the U-City project. When not many people were familiar with the terminology of Ubiquitous life or the city, she knew what it was to live in a ubiquitous era by collecting ideas from her father and glimpsing his layouts. As time went by, people got to learn about Ubiquitous this and that, but it remained as just an idea or a theory for a decade and surfed in and out of people's expectations.
Tiffany's father, after twenty years of devotion to the project, lost credit and had to resign from his work. That is when Tiffany graduated from Harvard Graduate School to follow in her father's footsteps from what she overheard and imagined as a child. On the first day of her first job as an architect, she learned that her father had pushed far to establish DongTak New Town.
His team was working on sensors to detect every movement and illness. The U-City, after all, was all about convenience and safety and the sensors were the key to meet that goal. She dedicated herself to this project for another eight years working with many groups and personnel with endless effort to make the theory into reality. And she did. Here is her first breakfast in the Ubiquitous City.
As she walks into the kitchen, the sensor detects her movement and turns the coffee machine on automatically. By the time she gets to the kitchen it is filled with the smell of fresh brewed Americano. She sits in a table with a cup of coffee and looks down at the flat screen monitor set into the table. She touches the screen and selects news, reading the headline news on the monitor by scrolling up and down with her index finger. Then she looks at the menu bar on the right column. She selects a banana pancake and starts reading the news articles again.
Soon after, a little vending machine next to the stove makes a buzzing sound as it is mixing the powder and water. With a ring, the dough is ready to be put on a frying pan. Tiffany then walks up to the oven, cuts the banana, adds it into the bowl, and pours it into the frying pan. When it is time to flip it over, the stove rings a bell. After she flips it over, she goes back to the touch pad screen on the table and checks her schedule for the day.
When she realizes yesterday was the day she should have gotten the results of her quarterly blood check-up she pushes the red cross button referring to medical services on the same monitor she used to read the newspaper and order banana pancakes and selects Dr. Anderson's office out of the list. The phone dials automatically and the receptionist picks up the phone.
Tiffany sees Ms. Jane the nurse and waves hello. Then she asks to video chat with the doctor about the results. Soon the doctor shows on the screen and tells the relieving news to Tiffany. However, since she is high on cholesterol she is prescribed to take some pills. After she hangs up the phone, she clicks on the pharmacy button and punches in her social security number. Soon enough the prescribed medicine list is highlighted for her to simply click to be ordered. She clicks the list and reads the medicine to be quick delivered to her work by 1 in the afternoon.
The final ring lets her know of the ready-to-eat banana pancake on the frying pan. She walks up to the stove and brings the pan to set on the table. She takes the separable handle off to use it as a hot plate. "It Is the best banana pancake I ever made," she thought. She didn't have to worry about pouring the water on a measuring cup to mix with pancake powders, nor did she have to take a slight peek to see if one side was done. Still, she just cooked the most golden pancakes ever.
Just then, the huge siren goes off and every light in the house blinks. She looks out the window and sees a man who looks like he is in his twenties holding both hands up and standing stunned on her lawn. Soon, the monitor on the kitchen turns on to show his identity on the screen. The voice comes along, "Attention, unauthorized personnel are about to enter your lawn." She reads over his identification records and wonders what a twenty five year old man is doing on her lawn.
Soon enough, the police drive into the street, responding to an alert signal that was automatically sent to the central control tower. The man slowly turns around and walks off. The police in the car watch in caution. Soon the man is out of sight. The police drive off. Tiffany then thinks, "What if he was just stopping by to say hello to his new neighbor" But then again she reconsiders, it is better to be safe than to give any chance of crime. At least she doesn't have to worry about living alone as a single woman due to a sophisticated security system.
After she finishes eating, she prepares herself to go to work. The lights turn on and off by themselves detecting every movement of Tiffany. At first she was startled each time, feeling that she was being monitored, but she learned to be comfortable with it. As she walks into the garage, the garage door opens automatically as she turns the switch on to start the car before she gets into the car. She drives off and sees the garage door close. As she drives on a clean and wide street, she grins and thinks that this is the true beginning of her life. Hard work, indeed, pays off. And yes, it is about time for Tiffany to look for romance to share her breakfast in a very new ubiquitous city.
