Products aren't revolutionary, get it straight!

The term "revolutionary" is overused.  Changing your form of government from a monarchy to a representative Democracy is revolutionary.  Browsing the Internet from your tablet instead of your PC is not. 

Revolutions are about upheaval not convenience.  Changing your method doesn't change the context.   The core of the word "revolution" is "revolt."  "Evolution" is just another form of "evolve." 

Simply put, revolution and evolution are not interchangeable terms regardless of anything you see in a Microsoft or Apple advertisement.  When you buy an IPAD you're not revolting against anything, not even Microsoft. 

There's nothing wrong with evolving, it's the reason we aren't still beating our clothes on rocks or retiring to a little wooden shack with a moon carved in the door when nature calls. 

Yet the word "revolutionary" gets thrown around quite a bit.  Maybe that's because the so-called developed world has long since moved on from debates over social justice to be replaced by the most popular color of Iphone. 

Perhaps the misuse of the term stems from our fascination with technological doo-dads.  They need do nothing more than change their shape or offer a bigger screen to suddenly find themselves on par with a certain conflict in 1776.

It's more than a question of semantics, it's a potentially dangerous devaluing of the term.  If a regime change is on par with the latest "product" we become desensitized to both.  That's fine for the crap found on late night infomercials but not for events that potentially affect the human condition. 

I'm probably screaming into the wind but it seems obvious that the more we muddy the meaning of what we say the less value our words have. 

Think about that the next time you're browsing the wares at your local best buy or Amazon.com.

If technology is the tool, why am I the one getting used?

Technology's great isn't it. 

"There's an app for that" and increasingly there's hardware for it. too.  The next decade promises an explosion of technical doodads that will be able to do anything from having your favorite latte' ready when you wake to alerting you to failing health.

Ain't it grand.  Our entire lives, every need, every whim, every action collected, recorded, monitored and stored.  Today, a newborn baby can expect a record of everything they've ever done from cradle to grave.

How convenient, how secure, how exciting this gilded cage we're making for ourselves.  Until we found out about the antics of the NSA recently, the concept could be brushed off as the ramblings of a crank.  Regardless of the level of technical expertise governments may or may not have, the event shocked a technology addicted populace even if only for a moment.

For the next few months at least, anyone selling anything with the word "privacy" is sure to do well until the next shiny bauble comes along.

Short of an EMP pulse from space knocking us back to the 19th century, change never happens overnight.  It's gradual no matter how exponential Moore's law becomes.  Today it's a fingerprint reader on an Iphone or the convenience of storing your private data in the cloud.  Most people wouldn't give a second thought to what it really means to swap out an Android phone and find all their personal data and settings automatically downloaded to its replacement. 

It's just  cool because it's so convenient.  Never mind someone else has control of your stuff...

All you have to do is stress the utility of that new toy and privacy goes out the window.  That anyone who uses a  Smartphone expects the data on it to be private in the first place is laughable but they do. 

 You can choose not to participate but soon find yourself ostracized.  Socialization, personal economy and even careers increasingly demand you jump on the bandwagon.

Technology isn't a bad thing so long as it remains a tool but it seems we're moving toward an age where the tool is used against us.

Consider a world where your smartphone snitches to your health insurance company via its NFC payment capability while your car verifies your location via GPS.  There's no denying it, you got the supersized fries and your health premium is going up because of it.

Consider your car insurance company monitoring every mile and basing your premium on what they find out.  It's already happening with at least one major insurance carrier.

Maybe you get a discount for driving 5 miles under the speed limit and ordering the salad instead of the burger.  That makes it all ok, right?

It's the small changes in what is considered acceptable that gradually erode personal freedoms and liberties.  Consider that for your discounted premiums you've essentially subjected yourself to a set of values you may not share.  As it becomes a more accepted practice you become more powerless.

Companies are essentially demanding compliance from their customers.  What happened here?  Since when does a customer have to justify themselves to  the cashier?

It's simple really. 

You're a prisoner, worse, you pay dearly for the privilege while the whole time doggedly defending your right to treated as such.

Technology is seductive, slowly evolving our dependency to the point where it's inconceivable for most to live without it.  We're convinced we need it even if we don't.  We must be continually connected and have instant access to everything.

We even create workflows of nonsense just to justify having it.  Is it really that important to be able to talk to Google?  What if all your queries were recorded, compiled and used to create a profile about you that you knew nothing about?

The sad fact is that the services we rely on often don't have our best interests at heart.  Profit and  Philanthropy make poor bedfellows.  So does power.

Once governments discover this voluntary abdication of civil liberties it's nothing for them to exercise control over our cherished providers of our technological fix.

And it is a fix.  If you can't imagine a day without your smartphone you're just as addicted as anyone on crack cocaine.  You think you need it but in reality you don't.

Technology is a tool but there's no reason you should allow yourself to be used by it.  Get your context straight and you won't have to worry about privacy or security.

Tablets on the rise as laptops fall

Article first published as Tablets on the Rise as Laptops Fall on Technorati.

Here we go again. 

The San Jose Mercury news is reporting that IDC (Intl. Data Corp) predicts 2013 will bring more bad news for the PC.  The de facto barometer of consumer markets has revised its latest estimate for yearly PC sales downward.  What was expected to be a 1.3% decline has now been  projected to be more like 7.8%.

The blame is placed squarely on an increase in tablet sales.  With 229.3 million expected this year IDC has gone so far as to predict tablet sales to outpace the entirety of the PC market by 2015.

Unfortunately, the news is both obvious and misplaced. 

Comparing sales of the Galaxy Note to a laptop is akin to comparing a fine wine to a 44 ounce fountain drink.

Tablets are consumer devices more on par with their Smartphone cousins than any laptop.   In a market sense they are disposable.  Conversely, laptops and the PC market in general operate on a much longer replacement cycle.  It's not uncommon, for example,  for the average tech savvy consumer to purchase 2 tablets during the lifespan of one laptop.

These days nobody would seriously consider paying upwards of $1000 for a laptop just to browse the web and check their email when a $300 tablet will do.  It's a given that such mundane mobility tasks have been ceded to the smart device market.    

As such, the decline of PC market share is to be expected but isn't quite the death knell the tech punditry keeps drumming on about.  Rather it's a realignment of markets defined by their functionality instead of their volume and that's as it should be.

A Surface Pro is not a competitor to any IPAD even though both claim a tablet form factor.  Their purposes are distinct and so are their customers.

In a sense, the  cheap, underpowered laptop of yesterday is the progenitor of today's tablet which now occupies it's place in the market.  A classic case of technological evolution and natural selection if ever there was one.

The good old days.

Vintage Atari Computers and peripherals

I've been rummaging around the house and I came upon a box.

Nothing uniquely special about it but when I opened it I found the contents magical.

It contained a collection of memories in the form of some old Atari computers.  I'm not talking about an old 2600 or a Jaguar but rather a collection of those old 8 bit wonders from the late 70's and early 80's.  They have names like 800, 130XE and 800XL.

I look on them with the same reverence someone a few decades younger may look on a Nintendo 64 or their first Mac.  They represent a time when technology couldn't come close to our imagination but we tried anyway.

I think those of my age are far more fortunate, however.  If you grew up in the late 70's and early 80's and had any interest in computers then you understand what I mean.  I've been privileged to witness the evolution of personal computers from little more than a novelty to an invaluable tool. 

Strange how things have come full circle in the so-called "post-PC" era of tablets and the Smartphone.  To listen to the pundits you'd think we were on the verge of personal computers becoming a novelty again.

To some extent they're right.   There's not much mystery to computers anymore and I doubt anyone will ever look upon their laptop with the same nostalgia I feel for that box full of Atari's.

When I was growing up I was aware that I was in the midst of a sea change.  When I was small there were no electronic games or home computers.  The few that existed  were crude and more expensive than any suburban middle class parent could justify. 

Childhood was occupied by exploring the world contained within a few square blocks of my house.  Friends, adventures and fun were all very much real.  No virtualization allowed aside from what came from my own imagination.

Atari 410 Recorder

When I got a little older I found myself in the middle of an explosion of technology. The first hand held games soon gave way to the first game consoles and finally my box of Atari memories.

 It was nothing short of amazing.  Turn on the power switch and I could play a game or if I had the patience, I could write my own.

I remember spending hours entering hundreds of lines of code from a magazine article knowing that one mistyped character could make it all for naught.

Looking back now, I was a data entry clerk at 12 and didn't even know it.

By today's standards using such dinosaurs was a tedious and laborious affair.  Hours of work could be lost seemingly without reason.  Cassette tapes and later floppy disks made for a poor archive with more than a few hours of feverish work lost because of them.  "Save now and save often" became a mantra.

I doubt today's teenagers would tolerate the shortcomings of early home computers for long.  Maybe that's where I learned the patience that I rarely see in those that came after me.  Today's world is geared toward instant gratification.  Even those of modest means can instantly satisfy a whim with an Internet connected device.  A feat that would take me weeks in my youth if it was possible at all.

Things moved quickly and before you knew it technology was advancing at an exponential pace.  The novelty was wearing off but it was still an exciting time.  The first modems allowed us to reach out to those similarly enamored.  The BBS or Bulletin Board System was the precursor to the Internet most evident in the millions of online forums that exist to this day.

Atari 130XE

It seemed every corner had a computer store and its aisles contained the stuff of dreams.  Computers, Software and periodicals about them seemed to be everywhere. 

Technology itself was the entertainment medium.  Just standing in the middle of a Federated Department store or a Radio Shack was better than a ticket to Star Wars with a free pizza. 

Even movies and television reflected the culture.    Tron was revolutionary for its visual style.  Wargames made millions of parents nervous about their kid's computing habits.  Both films showed how technology had moved out of the dusty confines of universities and corporations and into popular culture.

By the time the 90's came around the idea of personal computing was no longer in the hands of hobbyists or tinkerers.  They were as commonplace as traffic during rush hour. 

Suddenly the computer store on the corner closed replaced by Supermarket-sized electronics stores like CompUSA and Circuit City.  Technology had become commoditized, outsourced and disposable. 

Computers weren't fun anymore, they were just tools.  Cold instruments hailed as revolutionizing a workforce.  In reality, performing the same mundane tasks as their ancestors: pen and paper, abacus and calculator. 

Instead of being a catalyst to our imagination, computers and technology in general rarely rise above the menial anymore.  Smarter, faster but with no imagination there is no substance. 

A faster computer can calculate your spreadsheet in seconds.  A faster Internet connection can connect you to anything the online world can offer assuming there's anything worth seeing. 

Atari 800XL

Technology isn't the catalyst for change I'd hoped for in my youth.  It's little more than a new means to do the same old crap and that's the real tragedy.

Which makes my little box of memories all the more special.

I think I'll keep it.                                         

CES 2012, So What

Note:  I wrote this article last year for Technorati.  I bring it forward now to see if anything's really changed. My bet is that it hasn't...

Article originally published on Technorati as CES 2012 So What

CES 2012, so what...

Spend any time on the Internet and it's hard to avoid coverage of the Technology industries biggest show and tell.  But is it really?

This year, it seems the big story has centered around LG's 55 inch OLED display and an onslaught of "me too" tablets and ultrabooks.

Oh yeah, and that whole Microsoft pulling out of the show next year thing.  Even their keynote was a yawn inspiring parade of old information and lackluster demonstrations.   As I watched it I thought to myself that it was the first time I've ever seen Steve Ballmer struggle to not look bored.

Now we have the last of the two most recognized names in technology eschewing the event for other venues.  The other notable absence of course being Apple.

It's been suggested that it's far more effective and less costly to make major announcements on the Internet or via more focused events like Microsoft's Build or Apple's Worldwide Developer conference. .  If you're Microsoft or Apple, CES is not the avenue it once was to get your product in front of the consumer.

That makes sense.  CES is supposed to primarily be a venue for manufacturers to test new products out on potential customers.  By "customers" I'm not talking about you and me, rather I'm referring to purchasing agents for Big Box stores like Best Buy and second string manufacturers that want to use components from companies like LG.  So you don't get in unless you're either tech press or in the "industry".  

It seems strange that an event touting itself as a "Consumer Electronics Show" has no interest in showing their wares to consumers.  Instead they'd rather have the information filtered through technology media with their own biases or vendor PR departments.  That may explain why so many innovative products fail to gain any traction in the "real" world.  You can't gauge public interest if you don't give them opportunity to talk to you.

As I've watched the coverage from a number or sources I've noticed that even the best technology press gets little more than a sales pitch and evasion when pressed for details.  With all due sarcasm, it seems completely logical to spend millions on a flashy booth and provide no information on the products it contains.  After all who cares if the product actually exists let alone when it will be released.  In the end it's likely that we could have gained more information from a press release.

I've been to a number of industry tradeshows and I can tell you I'm usually bored after an hour or two.  While a trip to Vegas is usually a good thing I can understand the tech pundits bemoaning having to attend a show like CES.  Let's face it, they were probably bored the first day and spent the rest of the week desperately trying to find something interesting to report

CES gained a lot of its current popularity when Comdex left the scene around 2004.  Even with the exit of Comdex the show currently brings in only 150,000 visitors on average during its yearly run which is quite a bit less than the quarter million in years past.  Perhaps the writing is on the wall and like many brick and mortar retailers, the Internet has a lot to do with the decline.

 It's also possible that the whole concept of CES has become outdated.  Technology changes faster than old avenues of promotion can keep up with making it difficult to forecast demand for six months let alone a year out. 

Another problem is the saturation of product markets.  For example, this year seems to be the year of tablet and ultralight laptops.  What we see is a mild upgrade to devices we already know with little in the way of revolutionary products. 

Take TV's for example.  Everybody knows about HD now and the only big advance we've had is screen size and gimmicks like 3D over the past few years.  OLED is nice as is 4K resolution but it's still just a TV which is still a commodity product no matter how good it looks.  Couple that with astronomical pricing  when they finally decide to release the "upgraded"  product and all that "innovation" goes out the window.
(2013 note:OLED 55" said to be 10K when released only in Japan this summer BTW.  They blame low yields of only 10 to 15 percent of the large OLED panels for the scarcity and price.)

In the end it's likely that CES will eventually fade away in favor of more consumer focused promotions in smaller shows and on the Internet.