<< March 14, 2007 >>
i have never been more terrified of the future

on the heels of an article on container shipping, a recent (i'm behind again) economist article discussing corporate r&d had this disturbing premonition from a microsoft researcher on "media applications":

[Steven Drucker] envisages a world where people will take telephone calls from their television sets, ... and receive relevant advertisements.

where do i sign up?

first of all, who would want to use their tv for a phone? i'll give you a hint: nobody. if anything, the trend for phones over the last, oh, 50 years, has been to more portability and the ability to use them concurrently with other things: first, with long cords, then with cordless phones and mobiles. i don't even think there needs to be a secondly.

this other bit was in there:

And although Google's engineers can devote 20% of their work-time to their own projects provided it helps the company, the footsoldiers roll their eyes and admit that such time is usually found on Sunday afternoons.

posted by jacob around March 14, 2007