Scene 1: Softwars

David is at home recovering from stress while Li-lian is in Egypt for business. The school where David is teaching has recently started implementing the virtual learning environment (VLE): a personalised interactive learning coach which measures the progress of students in relation to targets that have been set. Since its implementation the system has not run well and has caused the teachers serious stress. This, combined with the fear of becoming redundant because of this implementation, it has caused David to have a severe burn-out. David only went to see his G.P. once. After his doctor diagnosed that David was suffering from a burn-out, he told him that the rest of the recovery trajectory could be done conveniently at home with the help of a Medicheck device. David’s health insurance company will refund most of his costs on the condition that he permanently wears the Medicheck which can be rented at the local health centre. The Medicheck consists of a tight t-shirt with sensors monitoring heart rate, muscle tension, bodily posture, etc. A virtual doctor is activated when the measured signals reach certain values. As he has the feeling that nobody really listens to his issues and because he would like to create some order in the chaotic feelings and thoughts he is experiencing he also decides to buy the Psychicheck – a mental wellbeing monitoring system, which according to the ads provides a permanent listening ear and personalised advice. The device registers the frequency in which certain words are uttered in combination with other words. It also measures the pitch of voice, sentence length and facial expression. It is able to take the registered domestic preferences profiled by his intelligent home into account: “It would be good to stick to your normal daily routine and get up at 07.45” is the therapeutic advice based on the profiled user. One of the pleasant aspects about the Psychicheck is that it is designed as a user-friendly little robot dog called “Fifi”. The social interface of this device makes it nice to interact with. One night David cannot fall asleep due to a strong headache. He feels sad partly because of missing Li-lian. Fifi picks up on David’s mood and inquires as to what is wrong. After sharing his feelings, Fifi, based on David’s leisure profile from his intelligent home, suggests that they watch a movie together. During a bloody climax in the movie in which the main character is about to be violently attacked, David’s Medicheck suddenly switches on. It reports exceeded heart rate and advises David to abort his stress causing activity. David wants to see how the movie ends and consults his Psychicheck which advises him to continue watching. David decides to ignore his Medicheck although his arm starts to cramp a little…  

Scene 2: A romantic confusion of identity

Li-lian is in Egypt for a business trip. She feels quite uncomfortable about leaving David at home since he is experiencing such a difficult time. Now that they are separated by a huge distance, she is very pleased that they both have implanted in their hands an active electrode which wirelessly connects them. She is at the airport waiting for her flight when she remembers how she and David decided to do this on Valentine’s Day. The active electrodes (both connected to wireless internet) were implanted into one of the nerves of their left hand. If one of them moves their fingers (creating a certain pattern of motor neural signal pulses) in a specific way (their “secret” gesture) the other one will perceive this – even if they are separated by a huge distance. The couple experience this as being very romantic: one can “feel” each other even when separated in space. However she has noticed on several occasions that the incoming signals confuse the monitoring system of her Medicheck (her travel insurance requires her to wear one during her stay in Egypt). Every time the muscle contractions were registered by the Medicheck as an unusual signal. She had to manually specify that the signals were coming from a trusted “outside source”.   

Scene 3: Pre-paid RoadMiles cards & interoperability

Li-lian is driving in a rented car from Cairo to Alexandria where she has a business appointment. Before leaving Cairo the owner of the shop where Li-lian rented the car tried to explain to her something about the “mile-tax” card she had to insert into the ignition slot, but his English was so broken that she had difficulty understanding him. However, she assumed that the mile-tax system was more or less comparable to the system in the UK. Car owners in the UK use “RoadMiles” cards which are linked to their account – and once a month an automatic payment of the due tax is made. When you rent a car in the UK you pay the amount of tax due to the car rental after returning the car. What Li-lian did not know is that in Egypt you buy pre-paid “RoadMiles” cards at the petrol station in order to drive. This system is used due to the lack of facilitating the required technological infrastructure and is also more privacy enhancing (you can buy your pre-paid card anonymously). Somewhere in the middle of nowhere Li-lian’s car suddenly slows down and stops. Li-lian wonders what the reason might be. Has the car noticed that her eyes became more and more tired? Impossible, the technology of this car is not smart enough to detect such complex facial features! When a car passes she waves for help. An Egyptian driver stops, smiles and tells her in a mix of Arabic and hardly comprehensible English that she needs to have a new pre-paid card. “Where should I get one?” she asks. The Egyptian car driver shrugs, smiles, and drives away again. There she is, on her own in the middle of the desert. She begins to panic. Hours later she gets to Alexandria – she had to leave her car in the desert and was given a lift in a carpet truck to her destination. Of course she is still stressed by the course of events, but fortunately the business people she had to meet are still in town and the business meeting can still take place. During the meeting her hand with the wireless electrode begins hurt – this is certainly not David’s secret gesture! Li-lian thinks that it has something to do with the slight stress she has experienced. She takes a deep breath and her hand muscles relax. However, this is really not the time to think about those things – in the middle of her meeting. Li-lian’s Medicheck device starts to beep. On the screen it says: “physiological anomaly”. Li-lian is irritated by this intervention. She is fine, why is this device bothering her?! So she selects the “no problem: natural cause for stress” option. When the alert goes off again she ignores the alert - she has to do business now! Fifteen minutes later however an ambulance arrives at the business centre and its staff barges into the conference room. They slightly hesitate when looking at Li-lian who is identified as the source of the distress signal. They are surprised that she looks perfectly fine. The audience slowly turns silent. The medical team turn to Li-lian, who has now stopped her lecture, and ask if she is doing well and could go to the ambulance to do a medical check. Li-lian follows them, confused by the whole scene…  

Intermezzo: A revealing phone call

While Li-lian is sitting in a cab heading for the airport David appears on her MyComm device. He looks very concerned because he has been notified about the Medicheck incident. David tells her that apparently the alarming signal that was received by the hospital in Egypt from Li-lian’s Medicheck device was caused by an unlucky coincidence. When David was watching the movie his stress level and muscular tension rose strongly and affected the implanted electrode in his hand. Normally these signals would have been immediately transmitted to Li-lian, but her stay in the desert with no wireless connection made direct transmission impossible. Shortly after her arrival in the connection node of Alexandria all the delayed signals where received simultaneously. This caused a peak signal picked up by the Medicheck which was unable to find a contextual reason for it. David also says that the travel insurance company is not willing to pay for the cost of the ambulance since these are caused by the interference of the implant – and as such not covered by the insurance policy.  

Scene 4: Citizenchip

Li-lian arrives at the airport of Cairo and proceeds to the check-in. Since the European Commission has negotiated a border control system at the entrance gates to Europe, a chip detection system has been installed. People are immediately categorised according to the kind of chip implanted into them: European citizenchip, US citizenchip, chips provided to selected immigrants who are still in an immigration or asylum procedure. A few months ago Li-lian read a news bulletin on her MyComm that there were massive demonstrations in the North African countries against the implementation of this system and the creation of a “chipless” caste.  When Li-lian passes the scanning zone, red lights suddenly start to flash. Li-lian is asked to accompany the security staff for further examination. It turns out that the scanning system is unable to categorise her unambiguously due to her double citizenchip (both European/British and Chinese). According to Egyptian law only single citizenchip is allowed and thus the system is incapable of processing double citizenchip. Solving the confusion takes quite a while and Li-lian almost misses her flight…  

Scene 5: E-waste

When Li-lian finally arrives home, David is so happy to see her again. They tell each other their stories and find out how many small coincidences have led to the strange sequence of events. Tired and angry about the bad advice of the Psychicheck they decide to throw it out with the garbage. However, did they realise that the robot contained all kinds of sensitive and personal information which is now literally “on the street”?