I was discussing my experiences of being without a phone for ten days concluding that the phone was something I’d rather have than not have despite the fact that to some extent the damn gadget takes over your life. It isn’t really a phone any more anyway. The percentage of its time spent making phone calls is tiny compared with all the other intergalactic communicating computer functions.

What is missing it seems to me is a Teleporting app. It just seems a natural evolution of the capability of the hand held computer personal computing device (it isn’t going to be hand held for very much longer). Who wouldn’t want to be able to just say “beam me up Scotty” and reappear in the pub saloon bar¹.

Yes this is all dreamland stuff but it is Friday afternoon and the weekend beckons. Clearly the problem is the lack of any technology available to make this happen. It would be easy enough to put together an App, integrate it with Google Maps for setting coordinates and provide a button with the words “beam” or “beam me up” (or even one with user-programmable text – let’s push the boat out). Of course it wouldn’t work but might look good.

The App could just be waiting for the back end tech to catch up and don’t worry, this it very much will do. We would also need more maps data than just for planet Earth

The question is when. When you think about it the answer to this is really obvious. Teleporting technology will become available at around the same time as dilithium crystal powered warp drives. Stands to reason, innit. This won’t be for a while yet but it will come.

I won’t be around to see it but that doesn’t matter. It’s the same principle as planting oak trees. You don’t do it for yourself. You do it for the enjoyment of later generations. The savvy amongst you (that’s pretty much everyone who reads this blog:) ) will have spotted that I’ve omitted to put a date against this. I don’t have an Alpha date let alone Beta or General Release. That’s cos I’ve been around the block. It can be fatal to put a date down that you are doomed to miss. Better to keep it vague.

This does make it harder to put a business case around it but lets face it. Business cases are often based on sales figures plucked out of thin air anyway. Either that or an analyst report that someone has paid a lot of money for so it must be right. Right?

The vagueness of the schedule also points to budget overruns. Whoever owns the project should factor in some additional capital up front. Lots of additional capital. Probably more capital than the Gross Domestic Product of the world. Totally buggers up the ROI numbers but well worth it. After all it is a Friday and the more time we have available to spend in the pub the better which is what Teleporting will do for us.

In considering the business case we shouldn’t forget ongoing operational costs. By buying additional drinking time it is going to mean we will be spending more money on beer. This is a difficult one to cost in because everyone drinks at a different pace although there must be an ONS report somewhere with an average number of pints drunk in a given time period. The average time saved by Teleporting would also need to be calculated and this will in all probability require some extensive primary research involving visiting many Public Houses around the country globally.

Finally we would need to forecast the cost of a pint at the time the tech becomes available. Hopefully the government won’t have upped the tax on beer too much by then².

So there you go. A take on the timeline for Teleporting. It will arrive at the same time as Warp drive…

¹ Mine’s a pint of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord bitter.
² I did say this was a dream.