Upgrade Me Page #5

'For Samsung, it's their investment in R&D, particularly nano-technology,

'that they believe is the key to their success.

'It's nano-technology that is also the driving force behind the upgrade.

'In the electronics industry it's called Moore's law.

'Across the industry, the number of transistors manufacturers have been able to fit on a silicon chip

'has literally doubled every two years since the early late 1960s.

'It helps explain how gadgets have become smaller and cheaper,

'with exponential increases in processing power.'

If you were to close your eyes and dream,

what does the future hold for the device, for the gadget?

What kind of gadget can you imagine in five years, in ten years?

That is also one of the very critical questions

that all the electronic companies are facing.

You know, we believe one of the gadgets will prevail over other gadgets.

It should be a cell phone, should be TV, should be computer.

I don't know, but we believe the market will decide.

But one thing I can be sure is, you know the convergence era will continue.

'Before leaving, I thought I'd take advantage of the Wi-Fi signal here,

'and try Skyping home for the first time.'

Hello.

- 'Hello. Hello.'

- You all right?

'Yes. How are you?'

- All right. It works.

- 'It certainly does. It's pretty amazing.

'Shall I wave? Hello!'

HE LAUGHS:

'Yeah, I think it's great.'

It's an interesting place. It's gadget crazy.

I don't know what this country would do if they had a power cut!

'Not much gadget action at this end!'

I have a very important question to ask you. Do you know how United went on last night?

'No! Would I know how United went on last night, Simon? Sorry I don't.'

You couldn't just flick Ceefax on for me, could you?

It seems a weird, given that I've only just got here, but I'll be back tomorrow.

'I know, that's pretty strange as well.

'But that's absolutely amazing, absolutely incredible to do that,

'and we should be doing more of it.

'It's great.

- 'Bye.' - Bye. See you tomorrow.

Bye. - 'Yeah. See you. Bye.'

'For me, the enthusiasm with which Korea has embraced technology is the biggest eye-opener.

'For Koreans, technology is the unquestioned road to prosperity and enlightenment.

'Back in Yorkshire the contrast with Seoul couldn't be starker. Apart from the snow, obviously.

'So, my body's back on the day job but my thoughts are still in Asia.

'In 30 years, Korea has been transformed beyond all recognition.

'It's wired to the digital future

'and is years ahead of us in its connectivity.

'What's happened in Britain in the same period?

'The way our pasts shape our lives is a subject I return to again and again as a poet.

'Growing up in the seventies, life was rather different.

'There were no mobile phones or personal stereos back then.

'What did we do all the time? How did we survive?'

This is my parents' living room,

and I used to spend a lot of time in this room,

and it was a big deal if anything ever changed.

You got a new telly or new phone or new record player.

It was a big deal, because that's how it was then. You got things and you kept them.

'Back then, objects had sentimental value. They were imbued with memories.

'I wonder if this is lost with the speed of upgrading?

'Objects were once landmarks and anchors for our pasts.

'This is an old laptop of mine. My mum uses it now.

'Today we've barely got to know an object before it's being replaced.'

'But I'm not saying we should keep living in the past.

'Back in the nineteenth century the Luddites attempted to halt

'the march of technology and people lost their lives.

'Here in Marsden you don't have to look too far to find evidence of that conflict.'

This is the grave of Enoch Taylor who had a foundry in the village.

He made cropping devices that did the work of ten men.

The Luddites smashed it up with a hammer they called Enoch and said,

"Enoch shall make em and Enoch shall break em."

So this is the confluence point of technology and anti technology, right here on my doorstep.

'These days there really aren't many people who actively reject technology.

'Even the greenest of the greens usually have a website.

'To find someone who had taken a stand led me here to Pembrokeshire.

'For the past decade, Emma Orbach has lived here without any of today's techno trappings.'

- Hello.

- Hiya.

Hello. Hiya. Simon.

- I'm Emma.

- Pleased to meet you. Hiya.

- Good. Do you want to come in? - Shall I

slip my shoes off? - Yeah, if you don't mind.

I don't suppose there could be that many people in Britain who would want to live like this, do you think?

Yes, sometimes I've thought about...

If I was discovered living like this there could be shock horror headlines.

"Middle-aged woman found in hovel in woods without electricity or water."

And so what is the difference between that scenario and how I experience living here?

And the difference is that I CHOOSE to live like this and that, for me, it's beautiful.

I'm not a victim of a circumstance that I would wish to be otherwise.

So to own a gadget would not make you any happier?

No, it makes me a bit depressed.

- Does it?

- Yes. - Why?

Because they always break down and they make a noise and they end up as landfill

and they're just part of the consumer nightmare.

It must be great to just get up in the morning and be out here in the land.

Yes, it is really beautiful,

'Emma has lived without a washing machine for 30 years.

'She's got no TV, no microwave, no radio even.

'Her one concession to communication -

'a landline two fields away.

'It's low-impact living, in extremis.

'Yet in spite of the absence of mod cons, Emma doesn't seem to want for anything.'

- So beautiful.

- Do they come out with their spikes...

No, when they're born, they're little pink rubbery things.

Have you renounced technology?

That's a really interesting question for me

and I've started to feel that I'm a conscientious objector really.

And, for me, I am not convinced that technology and gadgets,

add to the quality of my life - in fact, I think they detract from it.

What would constitute an upgrade in your world?

I can't think of anything,

apart from, yes, I do have an ambition to upgrade my trivet,

so that for my visitors... don't have wooden handles,

and that's quite a sophisticated sort of bit of innovative modern technology for me, yeah.

I wonder where you'd go to update your trivet?

Oh, I'd just get somebody to do it for me.

- Trivets R Us?

- There's somebody who makes them locally.

On the face of it, a life like this seems quite seductive almost,

especially on a sunny day,

and I think I could live without TV, and I could probably live without a washing machine

and a microwave and that kind of thing.

But I would find it very difficult to be out of contact for so long,

and so giving up the email and giving up the phone, I think, I would find impossible,

even now with my phone in my pocket I'm wondering which calls I might have missed.

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