Ubiquitous Computing
Mike Underloy has an a fascinating post in which he looks forward to Web Work in a Post-PC World picking up on reports that PCs are losing their relevance in Japan. Apparently PC sales in Japan have been in decline for the past five straight quarters. Smart phones and a whole array of mobile devices make it easier for people to access and update Facebook and MySpace and pretty much everything. It is quite possible that better input devices will be developed before the next generation of nextgens evolve extra spindly fingers.

No two ways about it, the PC is doomed...and not before time either. Being tethered to a big lump of plastic everyday at work seems to be a big price to pay and much as I love all the infinte possibilities the web provides, I do begrudge spending so much of my time face to face with a computer screen in some cupboard of an office.

When I first planned my glorious career, I had anticipated that computers and mobile telephony would allow me to work more or less anywhere, therefore I would choose to work from a beach shack in some exotic locale. This is still the plan, though not yet the reality. The shape and form of future technology will impact on the way we lead our lives, so it makes sense to be at least mildly interested if not actively engaging. Which is all the more reason for using web tools like Google Docs rather having a Word document on your computer, or bringing carrying your files and applications on a USB pendrive using PortableApps. If it frees you from the leaden weight of the PC then the world is well and truly your oyster.

The beach awaits

Blind faith in web tools

There is a lovely story in today's Guardian about what happens when you place too much faith in what you find on the web. A group of Dutch journalists planning a trip to Israel almost casued a diplomatic row when they used the online translation tool Babelfish when the Dutch Consulate requested a preview of the questions that the journalists intended to ask.

The email commenced "Helloh bud, Enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian, and on relational Israel Holland," before posing a number of somewhat disturbing questions along the lines of "Why we did not heard on mutual visits of main the states of Israel and Holland, this is in the country of this".

It reminds me of the time when I used voice recognition software to translate my recitation of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 and ended up with a somewhat more surreal version. Sadly posterity has been robbed of this new and improved text, the file was lost in a hard drive partitioning incident, though I do recall the final line "So long lives this, and this gives life to fish"

The name Babelfish comes from Douglas Adam's The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It is such a brilliant idea, a creature that in breaking down the barriers to communication causes "more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation" Perversely it is by not breaking down these barriers that the online version has caused offence.