Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1454922
50 I-CONNECT007 I REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2022 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE change? He would return to explore that question later. Delivery by drone was the next topic in Pogue's catalogue of sensor applications. A concept that many people believed would never be practical had just received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. Pogue demonstrated the principle of opera- tion of the Amazon delivery drone, an auton- omous aircra capable of vertical and hori- zontal flight, bristling with sensors to enable safety-critical operation. Apparently, the ser- vice was only "months away" from commer- cial launch, although the actual number of months had not been quoted. And the drone itself was physically huge compared with its effective payload. So, what new consumer technologies could we look forward to seeing in the next five years; things that were going to change every aspect of business and home life? Pogue listed drones and robotics, artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, employee-less stores, flying taxis, wearable medical sensors, and more. But there would be obstacles, principally our instinctive distrust of anything new. Histori- cal examples of revolutionary innovations whose initial adoption had been strongly resisted by irrational fears and scary stories included steam trains, air travel, microwaves and, more recently, even COVID vaccina- tion. But he stressed that people didn't fear all science, just new science. People were comfortable with things they had grown up with because their familiarity made them feel natural. Pogue could not tell us exactly what the new status quo would be, or when it would actually happen, but he promised us a wild ride along the way. A natural entertainer, he crossed the platform to a conveniently placed keyboard and closed his presentation with a song—to the tune of "I did it my way"—in celebration of the 15th anni- versary of the introduction of a new genera- tion of mobile phone with a touchscreen inter- face that performed functions of a computer, with internet access, and the capability to run downloaded applications: "I took a stand, paid half a grand, and got an iPhone." S&T