Welcome to the future

For pop culture mavens, the accelerating pace of technology has become part of the entertainment narrative:  The clamshell communicators that Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock used now look like nostalgic forbears of late 20th century cellphones that couldn’t even take pictures or handle e-mail; the self-driving cars that ferried “The Jetsons” are now being beta-tested in the parking lot at Google; the “pure perfect sound forever” promised for Compact Discs is being readied for obsolescence.

Yesterday’s futurist pipe dreams often look primitive alongside actual consumer technology, yet our real world encounters with new tech can be glamorous one minute, mundane the next.  It’s fitting that the most succinct summary of this brave new world came not from a sci-fi writer or a prog rocker but canny country star Brad Paisley, who summed up the look and feel of these encounters in 2009’s “Welcome to the Future” as a mix of the dazzling and the day-to-day.

On that populist note, we’re opening the pod-bay doors to POPWARE, MSN Entertainment’s new blog devoted to the software, hardware, accessories and ideas that are changing how we discover and enjoy entertainment experiences.  Our goal will be to track new developments with an open mind and a sense of humor, speaking as much to newbies and technophobes as to the savvy geek and geekette. (We’ll even take the occasional detour to see how old tech remains relevant.)

Let us know how we’re doing, and bring on your ideas about the apps, social tools, games, gizmos and more that you see in your future.