What should we say to non-nerds to give them hope from computer technology?

One challenge in admitting to having spent some time as a computer nerd up in Alaska is that folks sometimes ask “What is the next improvement in computer technology going to do for me?”  Mostly they are just trying to be polite and make good conversation.  What should one say?  These are folks who use a Web browser but that’s about it.  They don’t care about the latest operating system tweak from the lumbering Microsoft elephant or the competitive fleas on its hide.


One idea that seemed to excite them was chucking their desktop machines and the associated sysadmin.  I mentioned that their mobile phone had a communications capability, a computer, storage capacity for personal info, and an authentication capability.  Why couldn’t it be their home computer as well?  They could plug their mobile phone into a dock at home that would let them use a full-size display and keyboard and maybe augment the storage and computational capacity of the phone.


What vision of the electronic future would the readers/commenters paint for a rugged Alaskan who has a DSL line and Web browser at home right now?

7 thoughts on “What should we say to non-nerds to give them hope from computer technology?

  1. My money’s on stuff like Downloadable music, but also streaming video. I was (and am) able to watch any of the Live8 performancs in reasonably high-quality streaming video for free. As things improve and more content is available, I might be willing to spend $2.99 to watch a streaming movie; people in Alaska who have access to less in terms of video stores and movie theaters and where mailing anything to the Lower 48 takes forever could benefit a great deal from this.

  2. I am betting on either a cell phone or an iPod. In a couple years these will be so powerful they will be able to drive displays wirelessly.

    You check your email and surf the web for news from home with your morning coffee, then drop the iPod in your pocket and off to work. At work your iPod will automagically recognize a workstation (nothing more than a screen, keyboard and pointing device) and the office LAN. You can easily switch offices and business travel will be less of a hassle.

  3. Mobile phones and social interaction.

    Ironically perhaps totally irrelevant to rugged Alaskans.

    Your phone will let you know when you are in the physical vicinity of people who interest you for some reason, and not just socially.

    Technology changes the world when it enabled more intelligent connections between people.

  4. Where we should be going is getting everyone a server in their home that stores all their documents, databases (ie: Quicken, email, address book) and video and music files. Probably with satelite/cable receiver boxes plugged directly into it. All this stuff is accessed by either thin clients (MPEG playback box on TV/stereo, tablet on your fridge), semi-skimmed clients (ie: your workstation phone) or full fat PCs that just use the server for storage and are excelent for tasks like content creation.

    Unfortunately things don’t seem to be moving that way too quick. Microsoft still wants you to put a full PC next to your PC and Apple isn’t doing much better; yes you can share iTunes and play it though AirTunes (and hopefully soon “AirMovies”) but that’s a far cry from having a single, central, always-on store and not having to actualy go to a fat PC to start playback.

    And of course all this should be dummy-proof, something that shouldn’t be too hard to do as it doesn’t need to be a general purpose box and the OS should be completely hidden from the users.

  5. A mobile phone with GPS and a good map app should be quite useful out there…add on all kinds of cool stuff to the phone later on (e-mail, contacts and wireless keyboards now, the more advancaed stuff mentioned here in the future).

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