The Wire and Engineering in 2020

I am a huge fan of HBO's The Wire.  Over five years and 60 episodes, we got to see different facets of the City of Baltimore.  Facets that suburban American knows little about.  Central to the story is the illegal drug trade and key to the story was electronic surveillance and wiretap technologies utilized by the police.  Technology interfaces with this extremely complex minefield of social, cultural, economic, and political forces to produce the story.

If you fast forward to 2020, wiretap technologies could be taking a backseat to another technology.  McNulty and Daniels might turn to something else to track the comings and goings of Avon Barksdate's drug empire.  The key technology for the show could become the FollowMe drone - - a GPS-enabled craft that is essentially a personal homing device. 

Stringer Bell may want to check his car and should be glancing at the rear view mirror more often in the future - -