Gordon Lightfoot’s classic song by that title was all about romance, but what if you could walk up to a point-of-sale terminal in a grocery store, place your hand on a pad, think your PIN and you're done? No more cash, cards, or contactless key fobs with chips! Call it “Think n’ Pay”! Take this same concept and apply it to an ATM, and so on. Could we invent a device that can read our minds in such a way that all we have to do is think, and things happen?

The headline, spoken by “The Borg” in Star Trek: The Next Generation, is an apt description of web evolution. Web 2.0, though not a new term anymore is growing in popularity and describes the next version of web-based reality. The 2.0 story is compelling and about creative technological innovation that we just can’t resist. Web-based technology has forced its way into our lives in the form of social hot spots like Twitter, or wifi hotspots that keep us connected—our version of the collective. The impact of the web in our lives is growing and we can’t avoid it, no matter how hard we try. Science fiction has become nonfiction and resistance is futile!