Doesn’t it seem like there is a new app, device, or scientific breakthrough every day? Hard if not impossible to keep up with.

This past year, the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas had 140,000 visitors viewing 3100 exhibits. I went in 2011, when there were only 2800 exhibits of new and cool stuff to see and play with. Didn’t get to more than a couple of hundred exhibits. Might have done better if the crowds had been smaller and I could have used a Segway! Of course, most of it could be viewed via the web, but there is no substitute for playing with the new “thing.”

Seems I hardly get used to a new app and it gets updated by the author, or a better one is offered for only a few bucks more. It has taken me a year to begin to master my iPhone and I can now upgrade it and learn even more new stuff!

As the pace of technology increases, will the demand for these new capabilities also increase? Seems so. New phones and cool apps are devoured quickly by the masses. The younger generations appear to be very comfortable and to expect an almost constant barrage of newness. Us older folks just seem to struggle and often fall behind.

Most of this new technology makes life easier, better, and more fun. It also provides new opportunities for criminals and other assorted bad guys to spy, rob, and generally mess with the rest of us. Unlike the break-neck speed of new technology, our system of governance and civil defense moves at the pace of the 1790s debate club that generated it. Not surprising that our laws, policies and doctrine are a bit out of date.

Maybe time for some of this technology to be applied to governance. I would love to see an app that would let me zap the next Congressman I hear saying something stupid!