Part 1 (2/2)
She picked it up. It looked like a keychain laser-pointer, or maybe a novelty light-saber.
”Switch it on, Suzanne, please, and s.h.i.+ne it, oh, on that wall there.”
Kettlewell pointed at the upholstered retractable wall that divided the hotel ballroom into two functional s.p.a.ces.
Suzanne twisted the end and pointed it. A crisp rectangle of green laser-light lit up the wall.
”Now, watch this,” Kettlewell said.
NOW WATCH THIS
The words materialized in the middle of the rectangle on the distant wall.
”Testing one two three,” Kettlewell said.
TESTING ONE TWO THREE
”Donde esta el bano?”
WHERE IS THE BATHROOM
”What is it?” said Suzanne. Her hand wobbled a little and the distant letters danced.
WHAT IS IT
”This is a new artifact designed and executed by five previously out-of-work engineers in Athens, Georgia. They've mated a tiny Linux box with some speaker-independent continuous speech recognition software, a free software translation engine that can translate between any of twelve languages, and an extremely high-resolution LCD that blocks out words in the path of the laser-pointer.
”Turn this on, point it at a wall, and start talking. Everything said shows up on the wall, in the language of your choosing, regardless of what language the speaker was speaking.”
All the while, Kettlewell's words were scrolling by in black block caps on that distant wall: crisp, laser-edged letters.
”This thing wasn't invented. All the parts necessary to make this go were just lying around. It was *a.s.sembled*. A gal in a garage, her brother the marketing guy, her husband overseeing manufacturing in Belgrade. They needed a couple grand to get it all going, and they'll need some life-support while they find their natural market.
”They got twenty grand from Kodacell this week. Half of it a loan, half of it equity. And we put them on the payroll, with benefits. They're part freelancer, part employee, in a team with backing and advice from across the whole business.
”It was easy to do once. We're going to do it ten thousand times this year. We're sending out talent scouts, like the artists and representation people the record labels used to use, and they're going to sign up a lot of these bands for us, and help them to cut records, to start businesses that push out to the edges of business.
”So, Freddy, to answer your question, no, we're not giving them loans to buy cellphones and goats.”
Kettlewell beamed. Suzanne twisted the laser-pointer off and made ready to toss it back to the stage, but Kettlewell waved her off.
”Keep it,” he said. It was suddenly odd to hear him speak without the text crawl on that distant wall. She put the laser pointer in her pocket and reflected that it had the authentic feel of cool, disposable technology: the kind of thing on its way from a startup's distant supplier to the schwag bags at high-end technology conferences to blister-packs of six hanging in the impulse aisle at Fry's.
She tried to imagine the technology conferences she'd been to with the addition of the subt.i.tling and translation and couldn't do it. Not conferences. Something else. A kids' toy? A tool for Starbucks-smas.h.i.+ng anti-globalists, planning strategy before a WTO riot? She patted her pocket.
Freddy hissed and bubbled like a teakettle beside her, fuming. ”What a c.o.c.k,” he muttered. ”Thinks he's going to hire ten thousand teams to replace his workforce, doesn't say a word about what *that* lot is meant to be doing now he's s.h.i.+tcanned them all. Utter bulls.h.i.+t. Irrational exuberance gone berserk.”
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