IBM Says Using the Internet Will Be "As Easy as Calling Your Mom"
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 12. 4.08
Clearly they have never called MY mom, which is harder than navigating an architects website. They predict that "you will talk to the web and the web will talk back." Among their other predictions of for the next five years:
visions of the future used to be much more....visionary.
In the next five years, solar energy will be an affordable option for you and your neighbors. Until now, the materials and the process of producing solar cells to convert into solar energy have been too costly for widespread adoption. But now this is changing with the creation of “thin-film” solar cells, a new type of cost-efficient solar cell that can be 100 times thinner than silicon-wafer cells and produced at a lower cost. These new thin-film solar cells can be “printed” and arranged on a flexible backing, suitable for not only the tops, but also the sides of buildings, tinted windows, cell phones, notebook computers, cars, and even clothing.
forget digital shopping assistants, I want flying cars!
They also predict:
A crystal ball for your health- read your future from your genetic code, or maybe you really just don't want to know.
a digital shopping assistant-will tell you that those jeans make your bum look fat.
forgetting things will be a distant memory-your phone and your computer and even your fridge will nag you nonstop.
Sigh. How uninspired. Jetson Green and Sustainable Business
More visions of the future in TreeHugger:
Kitchen of Tomorrow from 1943
Cardboard Houses of the Future
GreenBuild: I Have Seen the Future and it Flushes
Ecopolis Plans Future Green Cities
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
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- Mister Miyagi's Guide to Going Green: 5 Questions to Always Ask to Think Green and Be Green
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You'll talk to the web? based on how much time some people surf the web, this means a lot of repetitive strain injury on voice boxes (my brother has carpal tunnel syndrome and developed speech problems after talking to his computer too much).
How about a digital shopping assistant that tells you that shopping is bad for the earth?
And tools that remind you of things tend to make your memory worse, not better. Just look at how kids can't do arithmetic nearly as well as 40 years ago, because they all use calculators.
Technological advancement does not necessarily equate to human advancement.
I went to the caseyBrown architecture site expecting to see some sort of internet abomination.
The site is very clean, very nice, very architectural.
In the furniture section, the first paragraph talks about consistency, repetition and simplicity of line. That is exactly what the site conveys.
So maybe a visitor needs to work a little bit to figure it out. Personally, I'm tired of the Internet being brought down to the lowest common denominator.
I've been making websites for about 12 years, and a site that really sucks me into a 'feeling' like the caseyBrown site is so much more refreshing than another regurgitation of a CMS driven website that follows all of the 'right' conventions.
I'm sorry, but I was redirected to this site and "article" by TowelRoad and although I understand the point of that Lloyd Alter is making in his story, there is soooooooooo much intervening links, "come-ons" to read this or that article, that intelligent as I imagine myself to be, I AM F*****G LOST. What am I commenting on?? Either fire the webdesigner, or have a powwow with real users and discover that as Marshall McLuhan said some 40 years ago, "TOO MUCH INFORMATION DESTROYS ITSELF".
Please redesign this site so visitors, after reading a posting, actually know what they are commenting on! It's not a lot to ask, but in this environment, maybe it's asking for the impossible. Hell, what do I know-I've got an MS in Computer Sciences and created all the special effects for Star Trek III. I may well be the 800lb laser simulation of the gorilla in the room.
Erin