[Da wird ein Riesenboohei um die angeblichen und tatsaechlichen Gefahren des Patentwesens, insbesondere im Hinblick auf Patente auf computer-implementierte Erfindungen, veranstaltet, aber eine IMHO wesentlich naeherliegende Schose wird derzeit im oeffentlichen Bewusstsein ziemlich heftig verdraengt: Das geplante Absterben des universell programmierbaren PCs. Der PC wird systematisch als zu haesslich und vor allem zu kompliziert verschrieen. Gadgets aller Art � la iPod (natuerlich mit eingebautem DRM) sollen ihn ersetzen. Hat jemand schon mal ein Open Source Handy gesehen? Selbst Organiser - obwohl prinzipiell mit Linux machbar - wandeln sich immer mehr in "Black Boxes". Wenn es eines Tages den (erschwinglichen!) Universal- PC nicht mehr gibt, weil der Markt dafuer ausgetrocknet worden ist, und Universalrechner nur noch fur Firmen als Server im 19"-Format handelsueblich sind, wird die ganz grosse Bastelei ab dem Schueleralter aufhoeren, und ein wichtiger Mechanismus fuer die breite Dissemination von Programmierer-Know-How und Open Source wird versiegen. --AHH]
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/53220 [...] "Die Initiative D21 �ffnet f�r die Best-Ager sozusagen die abschreckende schwarze Kiste, l�dt sie zur Probefahrt ein und stellt ihnen den Wagen vollgetankt vor die Haust�r", erkl�rte Thomas Ganswindt, erster in einer Online-Wahl gek�rter Vorsitzender der Initiative. Ganswindt, im Hauptberuf Vorst�ndler bei Siemens, lie� in seiner Er�ffnungsrede kein gutes Haar an der PC-Branche. Er verglich ihr Ansinnen, h��liche Rechner an die Kunden zu verh�kern, mit dem Versuch eines Autoh�ndlers, einen Audi A6 2,4 in einer schwarzen Kiste an den Mann zu bringen. Der H�ndler m�ge noch so sehr von �berreichlichen Kilowatt-Leistungen und einem Drehmoment von 380 Newtonmeter schw�rmen, der Kunde w�rde sich niemals f�r die Box erw�rmen. Als Gegenbeispiel f�hrte Ganswindt Apples iPod an, ein leicht verst�ndliches, schickes und technisch hochwertiges Ger�t. "Wir versuchen sinngem��, das Auto aus der Kiste zu nehmen" so Ganswindt. Mit dem ebenfalls von der Initiative unterst�tzten Nonliner-Atlas, der "fortlaufend die Topographie des digitalen Grabens" untersuche, werde man den Erfolg der Aktion �berpr�fen. Der ehrenwerte Versuch, den dr�gen PC zum schicken iPod des Internet umzumendeln und so die �ltere Generation ans Online-Medium heranzuf�hren, ist nicht die einzige Initiative der Initiative. [...] <http://www.economist.co.uk/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=S% 27%29%28%20%2CQ%217%25%210%23%5C%0A> SURVEY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Make it simple Oct 28th 2004 >From The Economist print edition The next thing in technology, says Andreas Kluth, is not just big but truly huge: the conquest of complexity �THE computer knows me as its enemy,� says John Maeda. �Everything I touch doesn't work.� Take those �plug-and-play� devices, such as printers and digital cameras, that any personal computer (PC) allegedly recognises automatically as soon as they are plugged into an orifice called a USB port at the back of the PC. Whenever Mr Maeda plugs something in, he says, his PC sends a long and incomprehensible error message from Windows, Microsoft's ubiquitous operating system. But he knows from bitter experience that the gist of it is no. [...] Steven Milunovich, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, another bank, offers a further reason why simplicity is only now becoming a big issue. He argues that the IT industry progresses in 15-year waves. In the first wave, during the 1970s and early 1980s, companies installed big mainframe computers; in the second wave, they put in PCs that were hooked up to �server� computers in the basement; and in the third wave, which is breaking now, they are beginning to connect every gadget that employees might use, from hand-held computers to mobile phones, to the internet. The mainframe era, says Mr Milunovich, was dominated by proprietary technology (above all, IBM's), used mostly to automate the back offices of companies, so the number of people actually working with it was small. In the PC era, de facto standards (ie, Microsoft's) ruled, and technology was used for word processors and spreadsheets to make companies' front offices more productive, so the number of people using technology multiplied tenfold. And in the internet era, Mr Milunovich says, de jure standards (those agreed on by industry consortia) are taking over, and every single employee will be expected to use technology, resulting in another tenfold increase in numbers. Moreover, the boundaries between office, car and home will become increasingly blurred and will eventually disappear altogether. In rich countries, virtually the entire population will be expected to be permanently connected to the internet, both as employees and as consumers. This will at last make IT pervasive and ubiquitous, like electricity or telephones before it, so the emphasis will shift towards making gadgets and networks simple to use. UBS's Mr Coburn adds a demographic observation. Today, he says, some 70% of the world's population are �analogues�, who are �terrified by technology�, and for whom the pain of technology �is not just the time it takes to figure out new gadgets but the pain of feeling stupid at each moment along the way�. Another 15% are �digital immigrants�, typically thirty-somethings who adopted technology as young adults; and the other 15% are �digital natives�, teenagers and young adults who have never known and cannot imagine life without IM (instant messaging, in case you are an analogue). But a decade from now, Mr Coburn says, virtually the entire population will be digital natives or immigrants, as the ageing analogues convert to avoid social isolation. Once again, the needs of these converts point to a hugely increased demand for simplicity. The question is whether this sort of technology can ever become simple, and if so, how. This survey will analyse the causes of technological complexity both for firms and for consumers, evaluate the main efforts toward simplification by IT and telecom vendors today, and consider what the growing demands for simplicity mean for these industries. A good place to start is in the past. <http://www.economist.co.uk/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=S% 27%29%28%20%2CQ%217%26%210%22D%0A> SURVEY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Now you see it, now you don't Oct 28th 2004 >From The Economist print edition [...] Out with the nerds The evolution of these technologies holds some lessons for the IT industry today. The first observation, according to Mr Norman, �is that in the early days of any technological revolution the engineers are in charge, and their customers are the early adopters. But the mass market is the late adopters. This is why Thomas Alva Edison, an engineering genius, failed miserably in business.� Similarly, in IT today, says Mr Papadopoulos of Sun Microsystems, �the biggest problem is that most of the people who create these artefacts are nerds. I want to see more artists create these things.� The geekiness that predominates in the early stages of any new technology leads to a nasty affliction that Paul Saffo, a technology visionary at California's Institute for the Future, calls �featuritis�. For example, Microsoft in a recent survey found that most consumers use only 10% of the features on offer in Microsoft Word. In other words, some 90% of this software is clutter that obscures the few features people actually want. This violates a crucial principle of design. As Soetsu Yanagi wrote in �The Unknown Craftsman�, his classic 1972 book on folk art, �man is most free when his tools are proportionate to his needs.� The most immediate problem with IT today, as with other technologies at comparable stages, says Mr Saffo, is that �our gadgets are so disproportionate�. A second lesson from history, however, is that a brute cull of features would be futile. As technologies, the sewing machine, the phonograph, the car and the electricity grid have only ever grown more complex over time. Today's cars, in fact, are mobile computers, containing dozens of microchips and sensors and other electronic sub- systems that Henry Ford would not recognise. Electricity grids today are as complex as they are invisible in everyday life. Consumers notice them only when things go wrong, as they did spectacularly during last year's power cuts in north-eastern America and Canada. �You have to push all the complexity to the back end in order to make the front end very simple,� says Marc Benioff, the boss of Salesforce.com, a software firm that will be examined in a later article in this survey. This migration of complexity, says Mr Benioff, echoes the process of civilisation. Thus, every house initially has its own well and later its own generator. Civilisation turns houses into �nodes� on a public network that householders draw on. But the �interface��the water tap, the toilet flush, the power switch�has to be �incredibly simple�. All the management of complexity now takes place within the network, so that consumers no longer even know when their electricity or water company upgrades its technology. Thus, from the user's point of view, says Mr Benioff, �technology goes through a gradual disappearance process.� >From the point of view of the vendors, the opposite is true. �Our experience is that for every mouse click we take out of the user experience, 20 things have to happen in our software behind the scenes,� says Brad Treat, the chief executive of SightSpeed, a company that wants to make video phone calls as easy for consumers as e-mailing. The same applies to corporate datacentres. �So don't expect some catharsis in eliminating layers of software,� says Mr Papadopoulos. �The way we get rid of complexity is by creating new layers of abstraction and sedimenting what is below.� This will take different forms for firms and for consumers. First, consider the firms. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
