Chapter 7: User Interface
He’s got a really nice Land Rover! I’m pretty sure it’s next years most expensive model; it drives itself, along with handling communications, serving drinks, and I imagine some kind of onboard weapon’s system. I know it has two detachable drones that fly off the roof once the car starts, probably creating a security perimeter, one sticking close and another moving at a further distance. Were in the back seat, which has dark glass separating us from the front, where his two assistants are watching the drones readouts and keeping in contact with the Lama’s home team in Lhasa.
“Good game!” he seems pretty happy with the 9 holes we played. He won. I was a little out of it after the 7th hole and the whole vision thing. “Yeah, you were not playing good after your passing out like a little girl. You had a sexy dream?”
It’s funny how he is really very perceptive; not sure if he really knows what he’s talking about exactly, but guess this is as good a time as any to talk with him.
“Lama, I wanted to visit the water development is Gyaza County. Can you show me the installation”. He looks at me a little strangely, suspiciously I would say.
“You want to see that place? Not such a strong station. Many problems, you know? You should have told me, we could have gone to 3 Rivers project. Biggest Dam in Tibet. Too far today.”
“Gyaza county Dam would be good! We could also see the first monastery. I remember you talking about Padmasambhava building that a long time ago. It’s pretty close right?”
“Oh, you were listening closely to me? OK, we go! He presses a button to his side and speaks in Tibetan to his crew in front. He leans his seat back and promptly falls asleep.
I can see from my display on the glass barrier in front of us that it’s only an hour drive from here. The screen tech is pretty advanced. As the car takes off, the map switches from a more general display to a highlighted route with the names of cities, geography, and cultural highlights. Pressing these bring up a closer view of the area with some form of Chinese Wikipedia linked to major areas of interest. The sides of the map are displaying our speed, weather, and various data from the two drones sensors along with our cell range, electric battery charge, etc. Have to get me one of these!
There’s a few drawers on either side below the screen. The Panchen Lama seems committed to his nap, so I snoop around. In the first drawer I find a pair of glasses. Putting them on, they seem normal, not prescription, but when I lift my head and look at the screen, wherever I focus my attention, anything like a city or landmark becomes highlighted. If I hold my attention it brings a line out from it and creates a separate area of information. If I place my attention on the new data and blink and hold my eyes closed for a second the info opens up and covers a large portion of the screen with lots of details about the specific area; there are lots of points indicating deeper info that are accessed the same way. Holding my eyes closed again for a few more seconds closes the new interface and returns to the main map, centered on where our truck is driving.
I’m really curious to see how extensive the records are in this things database. I blink my eyes on the apparently 1st temple in Tibet. It’s about 10 minutes away and I want to see what they have got on it. Before I can get too deep into the information the Lama opens his eyes and says, “Some of that information is too sensitive for a gui lou!” He waves his hand and the map returns to its normal mode.
“Seems like you’ve got a pretty good feel for the User Interface, though..,”
