The network is so pervasive it now invades our dreams and that is a good thing, says Bill Thompson
Last Saturday morning I woke up and reached for my phone so that I
could spend five minutes catching up on e-mail, Facebook and of course
overnight updates on Twitter before I got up to make some coffee and
start the day.
Radio 4 is the best way to find out what's happening in the rest of the world, but having easy access to news from my online social networks in bed is one of the boons of having a home wireless connection and a small portable computer that masquerades as a mobile phone.
One of my Twitter friends, game designer Jane McGonigal, had not slept well.
"Had a nightmare last night. Ustreaming from home. In the chatroom, everyone starts typing INTRUDER! INTRUDER! Someone snuck in", she tweeted, followed by:
"They saw it but I didn't. I'm terrified. I wake up (for real) and can't shake the feeling someone is in the apt. Very hard to sleep."
Ustream is one of the more popular services for streaming live vide from a webcam, and Jane's nightmare was a technologically updated twist on one of the older slasher movie tropes, with a laptop and internet connection replacing the telephone clutched in the shaking hand of the the terrified victim as a friend shouts "he's behind you!"
Fortunately it was, as they say, only a dream.
It is not too surprising that Jane's dreams should involve
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