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Issue #211 February 2008
Avoiding Stereotypes
by Steve Ciarcia
I really hate being stereotyped, but I guess it goes with the territory. Last week, I was having coffee at Barnes & Noble when I noticed the guy at the table next to me was reading Circuit Cellar. Perhaps he was reading my editorial and saw my picture, but he recognized me and we struck up a conversation about technology and gadgets.
It wasn’t long before he felt it was time to take my picture and started emptying his pockets looking for the right device. The first thing he pulled out was a BlackBerry, then came an iPod, and finally came an iPhone and their associated earpieces and wires. As he snapped my picture, he explained how he couldn’t live without his mobile media and that multitasking was his life—like text-messaging on the BlackBerry while listening to music on the iPod and watching a video or talking on the iPhone at the same time. Certainly, being the high-tech guy that I am, I must be doing all that and more.
The problem with being the Editorial Director of a high-tech magazine is that it gives people the impression that I live and breathe high tech. Well, yes and no. Yes, I own lots of the latest gadgets, and Gizmodo and Engadget are among my favorite Internet stops, but I guess I’ve passed the part of my life where I want intravenous communications along with all these doohickeys. I silently chuckled as this guy described how he constantly e-mails, phones, and texts friends and associates all day long. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I dislike “instant communication” so much that I turned off my voicemail.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m still a confirmed gadget junkie. You already know I like fast cars with lots of features. I couldn’t live without my ultrasonic backup “radar” screen (’cause I tend to back into things), GPS, and my 13-speaker sound system and satellite radio, but there is a limit to how many features I’m willing to take the trouble to use. I suppose it confirms my eccentricity, but I pay $200 a year for an integrated-cellular GPS-based roadside-assistance call system (like OnStar), but have never mated my cell phone to the car’s hands-free Bluetooth because I can’t be bothered.
I’m always among the first to experience new technology (like home control, web cams, LED lighting, HDTV, etc.), but it has its downside. I bought a Motorola RAZR phone the day it was introduced by Verizon (about $600 back when) and it drove me nuts. There was no way I could extract the phone from my pocket or belt holder without accidentally pushing buttons and reprogramming the phone settings. More than a few times I felt like driving the car over it. Today, I have the latest-generation RAZR with a camera I’ve never used, a built-in MP3 player with nothing in it, and an empty contact list. If I could find a truly dumb phone that only made telephone calls and wasn’t trying to be a palm-sized Cray computer with a built-in multi-media entertainment center, that’s the one I’d want.
OK, I’m a curmudgeon, but whatever happened to “keep it simple, stupid” in the use of all this technology. It seems like the longer a device is in existence the more complicated each iterative enhancement becomes—kind of like Microsoft bloatware. Turning a cell phone into a handheld multi-media center makes sense only if you can remember the directions for using it. It’s fine if you eat, sleep, and shower with your iPhone, iPod, and BlackBerry. Odds are if you use them that much you’ll remember all their programs and features. However, if you have 30 or 40 of these high-tech gadgets like I do, it is almost impossible to remember 100% of their embedded functions without having the instructions etched on the back of every one.
Remote controls are a perfect example. Ed Nisley and I are credited with inventing the universal programmable remote control, but I don’t use one. Every commercial programmable remote control these days has 500 buttons and a million permutations to accommodate all the conceivable electronic appliances. Of course, none of them have everything you need. When I had to start remembering that the XM radio was now DVD2 because the DirecTV was already programmed as “Satellite” and “Jump” really meant “Exit” because there wasn’t any real button for it, that’s when I tossed it. Arrgh!
Yeah, I know I could get a new controller with an LCD and programmable button logos, but at some point, the pile of just plain dumb remotes next to the easy chair makes more sense to me than spending a week programming the latest and greatest (and I better never lose the manual). Besides, misplace that remote and you are dead in the water.
I guess at this point in my life I don’t like dealing with complicated directions. My idea of useful technology is something that is intuitive. You pick it up and making it work is obvious or requires nothing more than a bit of non-catastrophic trial and error. Yes, I realize it means that I am probably using only 25% of the embedded features of most devices I own, but at least if I put it down, I can pick it up again and use it without a whole reeducation program. And, yes, many of you use a single device while I need to buy four or five times as many thingamabobs to enjoy the same activities. I guess owning five times as many gadgets as we need is a cross many of us gadget junkies just have to bear.
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