The Window

The old man is sitting on his porch by the side of the road. He likes this spot which is close enough for him to still discern the faces of the passing-by drivers but still far enough that he doesn’t feel the air blown by the speeding cars. Several cars have passed in both directions, but none caught his attention. Mostly single people running errands for professional reasons, one would guess. But finally, something interesting crosses his field of vision. Four people in an SUV driving under the speed limit. A family. Mom, dad, son, and daughter. Again, a guess, of course. Kind of a no brainer, though. When the only thing he can see is the back of the car, the old man says, “I like this one”. As he says this, his augmented reality prescription eyeglasses show four squares, one for each of the travelling family members. In each square there is a picture, the best picture The Window’s AI was able to take of each of the occupants from the high-speed video taken throughout the SUV’s traversal of its field of view. Each picture has a colored tag selected from a gradient going from grey to lime green. Grey to mean absence of interest and lime green the exact opposite. This is fully configurable, of course. “Show me the guy”, the old man says. He likes to start with the most boring looking option just to get it out of the way. He could simply skip over those, but he likes to make sure as it wouldn’t be the first time the AI had missed an assessment. And he’s retired, it is a hobby, so why not be thorough? Sadly, the AI wasn’t wrong, the guy is not interesting at all. Based on the pictures, the AI scoured the social networks for matches. This man has no relevant social media presence other than an outdated CV in one of the professional social media platforms. According to that, he’s in accounting. Nothing available on hobbies, political views, childhood stories. Not to diss on accountants, but in the absence of any other data points and personality traits, it’s hardly something to get excited about. Not much of a presence in other people’s pictures either. Which is odd, because jumping to his wife’s social media, she’s all over the place. Has pictures of everything she does, from PA meetings to the kids’ sports activities, the kids’ school results, updates on her nails and hair, vacations with friends. Everyone in her life seems to be in pictures except for her husband. The old man takes his own conclusions about that fact but moves on to more interesting things. As with many other people, the woman’s social presence serves the purpose of making it clear to everyone that her life is perfect. The perfect food, the most beautiful sceneries, fun and exciting holidays, and her children excel at everything, of course. She’s also outstandingly forthcoming in everything relating to her children. Their life is completely exposed for everyone to see. For the old man this is good, of course as it will provide hours of entertainment. But he also stops to wonder what the kids will think about the subject in a couple of years’ time. He spends the rest of the morning enjoying every little morsel the AI manages to gather about the family. He also watches the video of the family taken by the cameras, in real speed as well as slow motion. The Window also collected the sound in the interior of the vehicle using a laser microphone. This was an add-in, not part of the standard package. The Window was a present from his grandson who also installed and configured the whole rig. The best present he ever got.