When Technology Is Good Enough

Microsoft's security patches and bloated software will ensure you need a new PC every few years.

Already I see cellphones becoming more toys than tools, with all their gadgets that most people will never use.

Similarly, when I doubled my internet speed for a few dollars a month, I didn't perceive a change in speed.

So, yes, as the Pogo comic strip said: "I have met the enemy, and the enemy is us." We are now the main barrier to our own progress: Tools have reached their potential, in a crude sense.

I guess now we should look to making them more practical.

Also, there seems over the decades, swings back and forth between breadth of service and niche service. Maybe we are at one end now, with breadth/speed (at least for me) of service, and tech will move more to higher quality niche service.

Something similar is happening to the PS3. While the PS3 is selling well these days, the PS2 is actually selling well too, which is amazing considering it's almost 10 years old. The PS2 gaming platform is good enough for many.

Same with the stunning success of the Wii. There was an article which summarized that the technology of the Wii was just good enough for consumers to embrace, without the advanced graphics capability of the PS3 and Xbox 360.

@Geekazoid

My friend bought a PS2 a good number of months after getting his PS3. The reason is because he wanted to play all the Final Fantasy games because the PS3 isn't backwards compatable anymore, only a few versions of it were and they are discontinued. At $70, the PS2 is holding it's value surprisingly well.

As someone that has all of the latest and greatest stuff (new computer, iPhone, PS3, a couple of really solid laptops) I can say there are certain things that could be improved on the iPhone (faster processor speed, which would be easy, and a bit more battery life, which just means it should be a bit heavier, but still wouldn't be bad) but as far as everything else goes, bollocks, I won't need to change anything in the next 2-3 years for sure. The capabilities of these machines are staggeringly higher than our ability to use them. That's why I spend most of my time trying to put them to better use.

The question I always ask myself is "what was my justification for purchasing this machine, and does it still do that function as well as when I purchased it?"

And people laughed when I decided to get a Jitterbug.

It's why Microsoft are having trouble. XP wasn't brilliant, but it's largely stable and users couldn't see any point in upgrading to Fester.

If you follow hardware enthusiast reviews for high performance hardware, note how info-graphics have changed scale over time. A few years ago, the difference between competing products (CPU, GPU, HDD, RAM, etc.) used to differ in seconds and now the X axis is often in milliseconds yet the graph appears to yield a much greater deviation that people base their purchasing decisions on with a quick glance.

This is significant if you look at things like the battle between AMD and Intel where there is little difference in mid range CPU performance (which now have the performance to make most power users happy) yet consumers are buying into Intel's marketing rather than taking advantage of AMD's cost savings.

Graphics cards have also jumped over the, "Will it run Crysis?" apex a while ago and there are fewer perceptible performance gains over the last several generations. But there will be improvements as graphics cards as they don't need the GPU to get smaller for performance to get better and the major players are starting to add components that perform specialized tasks which improve rendering quality and speed.

Spinny disk HDD's however are about to be blown away with the new SSD tech coming down the pipe. I had a chance to demo some managed file transfer software that makes these things slam the most read/write demanding programs open almost instantly. Storage is really the last major bottleneck.

Anyway... I know... too much info... it's just something I've noticed as well. :)

Netbooks are canaries in the coal mine. My wife uses one as her desktop machine (hooked to a monitor, keyboard and mouse from a long-dead PC). It does everything she needs and there's only a slight delay when loading programs. Good enough.

Gauldar my PS3 isn't backwards compatible either, which is a bummer. I have the 40 gig one.

When starting data mining, the more power the better. Excel has now 1 million lines (vs 65000+) : business-wise, I don't miss the IBM XT.

@Sony: how can you create a backward incompatible PS3? That was one of the good reasons to switch from PS1 to PS2!
Anyway, I have a Wii now ;p

One of the cool things you can do is find applications that were written (well) in C. Most modern apps are C++ or Java, etc., and they require a lot more horsepower to run at the same speed -- because these languages are loaded up with default memory management, huge and sluggish object libraries, and more.

But take an old (or new... there are some developers that still swear by it) C app and put it on a modern machine... and it will *fly*. Really, the speed of some of the better written applications on the newest hardware is quite astonishing.

Well, I can't say so. Gamers, Photographers and Designers like to see some changes in their line. For eg. I been using a PC since 13 years, now I use a Mac. And my PC still has all the old versions though some open source stuff are always updated.
The software sometimes need not be updated but the Hardware surely does need to be updated to bridge the gap...

640K should be enough for anyone. Anyway the world only needs about 5 computers.

I'm glad someone else in the world is allowing logic to rule their descion making, not marketing campaigns. No you don't need to update a new PC every couple years. No you don't need a mac. I've had the exact same computer for the last 6 years. Bough for 400 bucks and haven't upgraded any of the hardware...no need. It still works fine, all the software has been updated and is current. I didn't have to do shit to it. I'm a graduate student who probably uses this computer more often and rigorously than I will ever have to use one ever again in the future. DUPED! you've all been duped in to consuming products that you don't need, so much so that your smug about your own ignorance. I can't wait for the spaceships to come and take you all away. Stange beings you people are.