[Speed Gibson,
Wednesday July 20, 2005 at 12:21am]
Easy to be Hard
This was the sub-heading of an interesting article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Business Section on an obvious problem: most of our devices are getting harder to operate. I don't disagree, but I'd add this additional facet of the problem.
Product developers are also obsessed with miniaturization. My new cell phone is half the size of the old one, and is about half as good. The buttons are too close together now for one-handed dialing, the acoustic feedback from having the speaker and microphone closer together is significant and annoying, and without the larger, extendable antenna, service is more problematic in remote areas.
My old trusty walkman that ran for months on a single AA battery is now a tiny unit that eats AAA batteries like candy.
I'm looking at MP3 players, and they're soon going to be the size of a quarter. Enough already!
Product developers are also obsessed with miniaturization. My new cell phone is half the size of the old one, and is about half as good. The buttons are too close together now for one-handed dialing, the acoustic feedback from having the speaker and microphone closer together is significant and annoying, and without the larger, extendable antenna, service is more problematic in remote areas.
My old trusty walkman that ran for months on a single AA battery is now a tiny unit that eats AAA batteries like candy.
I'm looking at MP3 players, and they're soon going to be the size of a quarter. Enough already!
Or in Dr. McCoy's words: "Great machine - no Off switch". ("The Ultimate Computer")
Yes, sooner or later it all comes back to Star Trek... :)