<< 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.