4 ms·

He plants a couple of nice flags: "This is 2012 and we're still stitching together little microcomputers with HTTPS and ssh and calling it revolutionary." and

by mturmon 14y ago

He plants a couple of nice flags: "This is 2012 and we're still stitching together little microcomputers with HTTPS and ssh and calling it revolutionary." and "In summary, it used to be that phones worked without you having to carry them around, but computers only worked if you did carry one around with you. The solution to this inconsistency was to break the way phones worked rather than fix the way computers work."

mmariani 14y ago
These are the points that most held my attention. I think too we're going in the wrong direction breaking up things and stitching them up again with technologies that weren't made for that. Although I think this strategy fits well the planned obsolescence policies we have widely deployed in the tech industry nowadays.
- prunebeads 14y ago
  That's interesting, but what would be the alternative? Rob Pike's dream setup "is a computing world where I don't have to carry at least three computers - laptop, tablet, phone, not even counting cameras and iPod and other oddments - around with me in order to function in the modern world. The world should provide me my computing environment and maintain it for me and make it available everywhere. If this were done right, my life would become much simpler and so could yours." In this situation, there would be public phones, public computers available in sufficient quantity everywhere. Think of the necessary amount of work to install, maintain, and upgrade such a setup. In a capitalist society, there would be different brands providing access to their own solutions, and thus a lot of Blackberry, Apple, or <your favorite carrier> kiosks all over the place. You could think that with such a scheme, costs would prohibit a rapid evolution of services, as we witness them in current business models. Would we get the iKiosks updated each year with new firmware, or the latest multitouch screens? In comparison, how much money is being poured by individuals in upgrades for their personal stuff? What is the overall cost (i.e. money that could be spent on something else). There's the real estate issue also. How much space would be consumed by those kiosks, and how much would it cost? It would be interesting to estimate all the pros and cons of that dream setup, and compare it with our current situation.
  - deong 14y ago
    The closest thing I can imagine to what he wants is something like a "t+15 years" version of the Motorola WebTop (and many other similar ideas). You carry a powerful processor with you and either use it "bare" or connect it to a standardized interface setup. You'll never get enough of those kiosks to completely get to what you described, but when your phone can be a perfectly capable standalone device as well, that becomes less important. You have the "docks" at home, work, and a few popular public places like airports, coffee shops, etc. The idea of something like these dockable phones is almost certainly going to be a big part of where the industry is headed. It's just too obvious not to be. But it requires advances in both ubiquitous broadband availability and power and battery life available to mobile devices, so it's just not feasible right now.
mbreese 14y ago
But, in defense of local storage, if you wanted to use someone else's phone, you had to remember the phone number of who you were calling. This may or may not have been a problem. My mom always carried around a address book with everyone's contact info. Sure, she could call anyone from any phone, but she still needed some local storage with her.
- prunebeads 14y ago
  Or you could have a login system on the phone to get access to remote storage. Stealing phones wouldn't be an issue anymore, except for people using trivial passwords, or writing their password on the phone.
ricardobeat 14y ago
"break the way phones worked"? oi? You could only call, not get called unless you left precise descriptions of your whereabouts. Sometimes wait a lot until a phone was free. Having a phone on you all the time completely changed personal communication for the better. The idea that the way phones worked before mobile was better is so inane that I can't believe it's coming from a scientist.
- prunebeads 14y ago
  What is better now with cellphones than before? Why is personal communication so much better now that we can be reached anywhere? I think it's a legitimate question. In most cases, people indeed want to be reachable, but is it really a good thing? In the long run, does it make the society a better place, and people better people? How can we measure the impact of the cellphone on society?
  - EdiX 14y ago
    I remember waiting in line up to half an hour every day to call back home my parents while on vacation because otherwise I wouldn't know if something important had happened and they would assume I was dead. And, hey, did you remember buying a new card for payphones? Those things used to demagnetise at the speed of light. I also remember that one time I locked myself out of my home and had to walk for 2km to get a the spare set from a friend (lets just hope he is there). Yes I think overall it's really a good thing.
    - prunebeads 14y ago
      The issues you're describing has been solved by cellphones, but it doesn't mean it was the only solution. More payphones, more reliable phone cards (in France we use smartcards for that) would have done the trick.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

by mturmon 14y ago

mmariani 14y ago

These are the points that most held my attention. I think too we're going in the wrong direction breaking up things and stitching them up again with technologies that weren't made for that. Although I think this strategy fits well the planned obsolescence policies we have widely deployed in the tech industry nowadays.

prunebeads 14y ago
That's interesting, but what would be the alternative? Rob Pike's dream setup "is a computing world where I don't have to carry at least three computers - laptop, tablet, phone, not even counting cameras and iPod and other oddments - around with me in order to function in the modern world. The world should provide me my computing environment and maintain it for me and make it available everywhere. If this were done right, my life would become much simpler and so could yours." In this situation, there would be public phones, public computers available in sufficient quantity everywhere. Think of the necessary amount of work to install, maintain, and upgrade such a setup. In a capitalist society, there would be different brands providing access to their own solutions, and thus a lot of Blackberry, Apple, or <your favorite carrier> kiosks all over the place. You could think that with such a scheme, costs would prohibit a rapid evolution of services, as we witness them in current business models. Would we get the iKiosks updated each year with new firmware, or the latest multitouch screens? In comparison, how much money is being poured by individuals in upgrades for their personal stuff? What is the overall cost (i.e. money that could be spent on something else). There's the real estate issue also. How much space would be consumed by those kiosks, and how much would it cost? It would be interesting to estimate all the pros and cons of that dream setup, and compare it with our current situation.
- deong 14y ago
  The closest thing I can imagine to what he wants is something like a "t+15 years" version of the Motorola WebTop (and many other similar ideas). You carry a powerful processor with you and either use it "bare" or connect it to a standardized interface setup. You'll never get enough of those kiosks to completely get to what you described, but when your phone can be a perfectly capable standalone device as well, that becomes less important. You have the "docks" at home, work, and a few popular public places like airports, coffee shops, etc. The idea of something like these dockable phones is almost certainly going to be a big part of where the industry is headed. It's just too obvious not to be. But it requires advances in both ubiquitous broadband availability and power and battery life available to mobile devices, so it's just not feasible right now.

mbreese 14y ago

But, in defense of local storage, if you wanted to use someone else's phone, you had to remember the phone number of who you were calling. This may or may not have been a problem. My mom always carried around a address book with everyone's contact info. Sure, she could call anyone from any phone, but she still needed some local storage with her.

prunebeads 14y ago
Or you could have a login system on the phone to get access to remote storage. Stealing phones wouldn't be an issue anymore, except for people using trivial passwords, or writing their password on the phone.

ricardobeat 14y ago

"break the way phones worked"? oi? You could only call, not get called unless you left precise descriptions of your whereabouts. Sometimes wait a lot until a phone was free. Having a phone on you all the time completely changed personal communication for the better. The idea that the way phones worked before mobile was better is so inane that I can't believe it's coming from a scientist.

prunebeads 14y ago
What is better now with cellphones than before? Why is personal communication so much better now that we can be reached anywhere? I think it's a legitimate question. In most cases, people indeed want to be reachable, but is it really a good thing? In the long run, does it make the society a better place, and people better people? How can we measure the impact of the cellphone on society?
- EdiX 14y ago
  I remember waiting in line up to half an hour every day to call back home my parents while on vacation because otherwise I wouldn't know if something important had happened and they would assume I was dead. And, hey, did you remember buying a new card for payphones? Those things used to demagnetise at the speed of light. I also remember that one time I locked myself out of my home and had to walk for 2km to get a the spare set from a friend (lets just hope he is there). Yes I think overall it's really a good thing.
  - prunebeads 14y ago
    The issues you're describing has been solved by cellphones, but it doesn't mean it was the only solution. More payphones, more reliable phone cards (in France we use smartcards for that) would have done the trick.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]