Just got to witness one of the marvels of technology. I was sitting upstairs in our living room and out of the corner of my eye noticed a truck coming down our lane and seeming to slow down as he approached our house. I got up from the sofa and moved to the window where I could see the section of the lane in front of our house as well as the driveway below me. By the time I got there, I could see the truck driver at the rear of the truck getting a box out of the back. I could tell from the markings on the box that it was an order we had placed at the end of last week for several books from Christian Book Distributors (christianbook.com) (CBD).
I knew from an email received on Saturday that this was being delivered by FedEx, although from my vantage point I could not see the front part of the truck where it was marked. As the driver walked from the lane to our front door (about 50 feet), he was using a portable device to scan the label on the box. He set the box down on the front door right below me and walked back toward the truck. As he disappeared from my view and walked around the front of the truck, I heard a ding on the smartphone in my pocket indicating a new email. I pulled my phone out and saw that I had a message from the book company noting that my order had been delivered. Marveling at the speed of the response, I was still shaking my head as I observed the truck backing up into the driveway across the street in order to turn around.
Think of what just happened. In the space of about 10 seconds, the wireless device in the driver's hand sent a notice of delivery via the cellphone network back to the FedEx headquarters noting that the driver had scanned a particular barcode while delivering the box. The FedEx computers matched that barcode to the delivery order and connected it to the company who had submitted that delivery order. They then sent a notice of delivery to CBD via the Internet with the identification of the shipment. CBD matched the shipment id to the order that I had placed, constructed an email with the list of books that were in that box and sent an email over the Internet where it got routed to a gmail server (which might be anywhere in the US). It was then routed to the several devices which are connected to my email address (my laptop, my smartphone, and my wife's smartphone), and each of these devices made the appropriate response to that incoming message - a beep on our smartphones, and a different sound on my laptop.
Ten seconds for all the above - starting with a scanned barcode on the driveway below me, routing of messages between computers and other devices located all across the US, and ending up with an email on the device in my pocket and an audible notice to me - and all before the driver even had a chance to get back in his truck and drive off!
When I went off to college in 1966 I didn't even know what a computer was. I was fortunate enough to recognize their potential, to major in that field as soon as a degree program became available in 1968, and to work in the computer field for the next several decades. But I am still amazed at where technology has taken us.
Ten seconds!
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