Computers

Because our mail is delivered to central mailboxes in our building, we sometimes get our neighbor's mail (probably when the mailwomen gets a little too hurried). We usually just take the mail and drop it in front of the neighbor's door when this happens, but yesterday we got our neighbor's PC Magazine, so I decided I might flip through it before turning it over. I know, I'm evil!

So I was reading the John Dvorak column and he was commenting on the progress of computing in the last few decades, noting how fundamental shifts that we all expected have not yet materialized. Specifically, computers have not become more human-centric, i.e. they don't talk, listen to, or understand humans very well at all, unlike in the science-fiction movies such as Star Trek where the characters ask computers questions and they respond intelligently.

Dvorak likens the phenomenon to the 1950's notion that everyone would be driving flying cars by the year 2000. And what are we doing? We're still driving cars that are relatively the same as they were back then, with only marginal improvements. Dvorak writes,

"Instead, the car became merely a practical deviste that can double as a status symbol and a fashion statement. Can the same fate of practicality strike the computer?"

Although he doesn't consider many of the advances that the internet has brought, it still makes me wonder about how much more computers are going to do for us, at least in the near future.