Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] need thoughts on future search tools for kid's book

[Steven Solomon]

Folks,

Jan Werner Wrote:

> So why aren't we flying around like the Jetsons yet?

We've got other problems to solve; environmental issues, fuel bottles  
necks, clean water, childhood mortality, education and nutrition for  
the disadvantaged, stupid wars, entrenched business and political  
interests, etc. All of those problems are part of a bundle, of  
course. So, despite several companies working for years to get us  
that Jetson flying car, we're going to have to wait until we deal  
with some practical problems.

> I recall attending a conference sponsored by Digital Research in  
> Boston about 25 years ago to promote CP/M-86 (remember that?) for  
> the IBM PC at which a Digital Equipment (remember them?) engineer  
> replied, when asked about the "paperless office" (which the  
> visionaries were then touting) that it was about as likely to catch  
> on as the paperless bathroom.

Hah! If you recall some years ago Xerox touted the paperless office.  
Then relatively affordable Laser printers arrived and the amount of  
PC generated paper exploded. After a couple of years of flailing  
about, Xerox became "The Document Company" again. Interestingly, the  
Laser Printer was invented by Xerox around the time they pioneered  
and attempted to commercialize networked local computers (The Alto)  
and their printers.

Whoops.

> And then there are those who have been saying for decades that the  
> keyboard will go away because of improvements in voice recognition.  
> Aside from the fact that even a moderately good typist can enter  
> data much faster than one can speak it (except perhaps for the guy  
> in the old Fed-Ex commercials), can you imagine working in an  
> office with 50 people talking to their computers all day long?

Interesting conundrum. One solution to the problem is noise canceling  
head phones, but what boss will put up with an office full of  
chattering employees who can here the phone ring or that boss'  
hectoring? The challenge is more social and organizational that  
technological. Still as Jan points out, most folks are more  
comfortable typic that speaking extemporaneously.

> As Yogi said, it's hard to predict things, especially about the  
> future.

Back in the late 1980s I heard the guy, Andy Lippman, from MIT's  
Media lab speak. He held up a bar of soap and told the audience that  
he was going to predict the future. Some day soon, he claimed, we  
would have computers not much larger that that bar of soap. He the  
then admonished to crowd to never try to predict things more that  
five or ten years out. Within a few years, of course the Apple  
Newton, then the Palm, then mobile Windows on tiny devices hit the  
stores. Interestingly, he sort explained how folks in the 1930's got  
it so wrong about us all having autogyros to fly to the grocery store.

S

Steven Solomon
Writer, Inventor, Near Futurist
ssol at interactiveguild.com
http://www.interactiveguild.com
Home Office: 413.585.0229

In The Maze of a Networked World, We Help You See Around Corners.


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