Fair is foul and foul is fair
I have been involved in the technology industry for close to 30 years and not a month goes by where I don't see something significantly different or interesting. Once or twice a year I'm even "wowed", seeing a gadget that just does something remarkable, either too because it's too cool for words or even more rarely, because it's so useful, it can make you cry.
Then there's the things that go wrong. I completely understand new tech breaking down or maybe some esoteric bug that manifests when some never-been-tested-before situation occurs, "we never tried using the invisible dog fence while making microwave popcorn. Look, we'll buy your kid a new poodle." But that's not what really happens. What is the most common tech problem?
Microphones that don't work. It happened to General Petraeus yesterday while testifying on the Hill.
After microphones? Speakerphones. Then comes the dreaded A/V nightmare, the overhead presentation.
Why is 50 year old tech this difficult to get right? I'm not sure that I've ever been to a presentation where there wasn't a problem with one of these three gadgets: microphone, speakerphone or overhead display.
This bodes ill for the future of truly complex gadgets like cellphones, PDAs or GSMs. As we begin using them in critical situations where we need them to function, will they let us down the way their stupid audiovisual brethren have? And where are the geeks from the old High School A/V club now that you need them? Oh that's right, they're running Microsoft.
Posted on September 11, 2007
