Materials mnufacturer Corning put together a futurist video last month called "A Day Made Of Glass," which has spiraled into stratospheric popularity on YouTube. The premise of the video is that we're about to live in an era of ubiquitous touchscreens (made with glass) and smart windows (made of glass) as well as appliances like stoves which are also made with glass.


What's striking about the video is mostly how we see the touch screens working, and the way the mobile devices seamlessly network with household appliances, TVs, and bendable flat screen computers. There's also a very paranoia-inducing, panopticon feeling to what we're seeing. As one person walks along, we see giant pictures of her (or her avatar?) leaping up the walls of buildings. And when she walks into a store, she's shown pictures of herself in the clothes she might want to try on. A world made of glass may promise easy information access, but it also seems to be a world where everybody is always looking at themselves and each other to an alarming degree.

Still, I wouldn't say no to some of this tech. Especially the interface where you plop your phone down onto a surface and it instantly networks with it and allows you to get a large screen version of the data on your mobile.