Editor’s Corner:
JUST GIVE ME THAT OFFLINE ELECTRONIC LIFE

Home, home on the couch, watching the deer and the antelope play on my DTV, I reach for my "pizza clicker" and order a pepperoni pie.

At work, I read my mail with delight as I take in the look and feel of luscious stationaries and glossy brochures. I need to order more inventory for my store and I fill out a fax form and have my secretary fax it over to Exact®. The products arrive the next day. I go to the mall on my lunch break and pay my American Express bill with my smart card at an ATM and immediately have frequent flyer miles added to my card for the dollars I’ve just spent.

I faint in the middle of the street and an Emergency Medical Team whips out my smart card and accesses my medical history. They trace my last few transactions on my card and after questioning me as they revive me, I’m told I’ve had a delayed reaction to the pepperoni of last night. Better get rid of that pizza clicker, they tell me.

I no longer use my e-mail that much. I love my videophone where I can really see the people I’m talking to. Who needs messages on a computer screen? Even if they have live video. I’m living in real time now. And if I have messages online somewhere, my smart card will arrange to have the system call me periodically and read me my mail over the phone. Rather than "log on," which is such a time consuming task, I dictate my replies to the "agent" that has phoned me.

Everywhere I go I am offered enhancements to my smart card that will arrange wake up calls, monitor my stocks for me by wireless transactions and alert me by fax that it is time for a trade.

Life has never been better with "the chip card," as we will call it.

I don’t know if my fantasy will come true, but it seems to me that smart cards are in a position now to drastically alter our transactional life. ATM cards and machines have been around as long as computers have. After two decades, ATMs have become a way of life. And why? The "apparatus" people need is cheap to manufacture, distribute and carry around. The terminals are simple and easy to use. You don’t need a few thousand dollars to gear up and play the online game. The biggest challenge is educating people how to use and benefit from a smart card. In comparison to getting people up and running on a computer, it’s a piece of cake.

No, there’s not much interactivity in my fantasy with vast electronic realms that have me surfing day and night. But the greatest benefit is that I’m offline so much, you know, I actually have a life!