Mat Honan visits Google Island
After taking in a four-hour keynote at the Google I/O conference, Mat Honan is transported to a magical place called Google Island.
The soft, froggy voice startled me. I turned around to face an approaching figure. It was Larry Page, naked, save for a pair of eyeglasses.
“Welcome to Google Island. I hope my nudity doesn’t bother you. We’re completely committed to openness here. Search history. Health data. Your genetic blueprint. One way to express this is by removing clothes to foster experimentation. It’s something I learned at Burning Man,” he said. “Here, drink this. You’re slightly dehydrated, and your blood sugar is low. This is a blend of water, electrolytes, and glucose.”
I was taken aback. “How did you…” I began, but he was already answering me before I could finish my question.
“As soon as you hit Google’s territorial waters, you came under our jurisdiction, our terms of service. Our laws-or lack thereof-apply here. By boarding our self-driving boat you granted us the right to all feedback you provide during your journey. This includes the chemical composition of your sweat. Remember when I said at I/O that maybe we should set aside some small part of the world where people could experiment freely and examine the effects? I wasn’t speaking theoretically. This place exists. We built it.”
I was thirsty, so I drank the electrolyte solution down. “This is delicious,” I replied.
“I know,” he replied. “It also has thousands of micro sensors which are now swarming through your blood stream.”
“What… ” I stammered.
“Your prostate is enlarged. Let’s go hangout now. There’s some really great music I’d like to recommend to you.”
You could consider this a follow-up to 2004’s EPIC 2014 by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson.
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