Holy Technology— An Emergency Call From The Past
The deeper technology truths behind the iPhone 14 rescue
Did you see the story about the latest miraculous iPhone 14 rescue?
Two weeks ago a man and a woman’s car slipped one hundred yards off a cliff onto the floor of a canyon. Before they could crawl out of the car, their iPhone had automatically dialed 911, announced their crash to the emergency operator, and provided the phone’s lat-lon coordinates. Within thirty minutes they were being med-flighted to a hospital.
Moments after the crash, the pair had found the phone crushed and were shocked to see a helicopter overhead despite not being able to call. They said the rescue happened like magic.
It was Arthur C. Clarke, scientist and writer of 2001: A Space Odyssey, who declared his Third Law:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
The magic that the Washington Post reporter was talking about was the emergency call feature built into the latest Apple iPhone.
Today’s sixteen year-old immersed in social media revels in their technology. They are dumbfounded by the fumbling of their elders struggling with phone apps, and it is true that a 65-year-old physics PhD could well be stymied in making…
