Apple's Contribution is More than Content and Devices
I read another blogger today saying the Apple's tablet is not as important as the content and then going on about the new media subscription platforms that may appear with the iTablet to be announced tomorrow. However, I believe Apple's intrinsic contribution of value is beyond even their innovative approach to content delivery.
Apple's real contribution to the world of technology is their streamlining of how we interact with devices and information content. Rather than focus on a solution itself, Apple looks for answers to the most natural way we want to resolve challenges using technology. Hence, their intuitive mashup APIs and the innovative use of gestures on screens, touch-pads, and mice.
Contrast the development trends between the Industrial Age of the 19th and early part of the 20th Centuries, and the Information Age of today. With industry, electro-mechanical power was related to mass (size). More power required bigger machines. However, with technology, the speed of bits traveling on a microprocessor is enhanced by reducing the size of the chip and thereby reducing the distance traveled. This is a simple illustration, clearly, and certainly there are exceptions but I speak in general, panoramic terms.
Technological innovation trends are tending toward ubiquitous delivery and merging with our identity to the extent that human and technological are no longer separate. This paradigm has long been researched with recent discoveries unveiling the cyborg generation's understanding that even our physical body is a a prosthesis we have learned to manipulate.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that nano-technology developments are seeking ways to "invade" our physical prosthesis (body, brain, etc.) to merge the electro-chemical with our electro-mechanical devices.
Body snatchers or body enhancers?
The fear of loss of privacy and the taking over of our minds by some unscrupulous person/s is certainly a peril about which to be concerned. However, the medical needs that often drive innovation, offer promise to millions who lack the mobility and subsequent lifestyle choices of the masses.
Our responsibility is great and should not be underestimated. But fear of the future should not preclude our invention of a better future. We are creatures of hope, not victims of fear. If allowed to carry out their course, cynical minds stifle and dumb down the masses to an ultimate police state existence. Critical minds create. Either may be sustainable, but which option advances human inter-contributory dependence which is what builds community? (posted 2/9/10)
