It’s a 150 years in the future – which avatar chamber do you choose? Dr Grace (Sigourney Weaver) points the far one out to Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) – “use this one – it has the fewest glitches…”. 
Some our team took in an opening night screening of James Cameron’s movie landmark Avatar 3D yesterday. The technology portrayed is super-advanced, wrap-around and 3D – like the movie itself. Among the many ideas fizzing through this Star Wars for the Jaded Generation are some pointed criticisms of our reliance and increasing dependence on technology.
Grace is the seemingly hard-nosed scientist using technology as a tool-set to explore the truth – the secrets of Pandora and Eyra. Her take on the choice of avatar chamber is pragmatic – if you get first choice, use the one with the fewest glitches. She understands that the benefits of cutting-edge technology are wonderful but to be handled carefully.
Giovanni Ribisi’s character Selfridge is the exploitative project administrator. His attitude to technology is to trust it with his life and treat it as an weapons arsenal to force his demands. He is astonished when it fails and has no back-up plan.
Back in the real world, warnings about protecting your data tend to be ignored until it’s too late. Do add it to your New Year’s IT Resolution list. Treat your hardware like Grace and not like Selfridge. Expect it to fail, and have a plan B.
All technology, however wonderful, is flawed and combines design failures with wear and tear. Every day we encounter stories from real people who have invested parts of their real life to computer storage and believe their investment is safe. And each of those stories reveals glitches in technology. Computers crash. Hard drives fail.
Be good, and if you can’t be good, be careful.
And if you can’t be careful give us a call and we’ll get your data back.
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