Technology seduces us

--- Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson in Ingenious: The Unintended Consequences of Human Innovation (2019), p. 148, via a New Scientist book review by  Jonathon Keats

In context:

[. . .] It can be argued that the smartphone represents the practical pinnacle of human ingenuity to date.

People's expectations have also changed. No longer do we accept a phone that is just a phone. We want one that is lightweight, has a battery that lasts forever, has unlimited memory, can monitor our health as well as our finances, can connect to the internet rapidly anywhere, act as a GPS system, survive being dropped into the toilet, unlock our car, manage our kitchen from a distance, turn off our lights, monitor our alarms, find itself or another phone when lost, be absolutely secure . . . . Technology seduces us. Rather than being happy with what we have we want more, fashion dictates that we need a new phone even when we don't. Industry wants us to have more. More capable, and often more expensive, models appear every year—all launched with fanfare and pizazz. 

But these phones soon also performed other functions—they fed users' data back to the supplier. It was a Faustian deal that many other companies joined in on. These companies did not need to actually make physical things in order to succeed. Amazon, Google, and Facebook had a very different way of making money. And that all depended on the internet.

"Innovation is unnatural"

--- The Economist's Schumpeter columnist, in  review (Aug 30, 2010) of “The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge” by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble ("G&T")

From the piece:

G&T say that you need to start by recognising that innovation is unnatural. Established businesses are built for efficiency, which depends on predictability and repeatability—on breaking tasks down into their component parts and holding employees accountable for hitting their targets. But innovation is by definition unpredictable and uncertain. Bosses may sing a pretty song about innovation being the future. But in practice the heads of operational units will favour the known over the unknown.

...

G&T argue that companies need to build dedicated innovation machines. These machines need to be free to recruit people from outside (since big companies tend to attract company men rather than rule-breakers). They also need to be free from some of the measures that prevail in the rest of the company. But they must avoid becoming skunk works. They need to be integrated with the rest of the company—they must share some staff, for example, and they must tap into the wider company’s resources as they turn ideas into products. And they must be tightly managed according to customised rather than generic rules. For example, they should be held accountable for their ability to learn from mistakes rather than for their ability to hit their budgets.

Sounds good, but it's easy to give recipes. Still, it's a good quote

"a gloriously over-engineered stand-up scooter"

--- The Economist's description of the Segway, in a profile of Dean Kamen, "Mr Segway's difficult path", Technology Quaterly, June 12th 2010.  Classic Economist.

In context:

The invention for which Mr Kamen is best known is the Segway Transporter, a gloriously over-engineered stand-up scooter that had the misfortune to emerge just after the dotcom crash in 2001, just as the disillusioned technology industry was looking for the next big thing. Before its unveiling, Mr Kamen’s mysterious new invention was the subject of feverish speculation. Steve Jobs of Apple said it was “as big a deal as the PC” and John Doerr, a venture capitalist, mused that it would be “bigger than the internet”. It was, in fact, a rather clever two-wheeled, self-balancing scooter, using technology similar to the iBot. But after all the hype it could not possibly live up to expectations.

"Google loves challenging old business models with new technology ideas"

--- Mark Sullivan in his PC World piece on 10 Feb 2010 "Google Challenge to US Broadband Might Actually Change Things"

In context:

The announcement comes right on the heels of the federal government releasing the first round of funding for broadband networks to rural and underserved areas. It appears to be intended as an adjunct to the FCC’s own Broadband Plan, as if to say: “See, you can do it like this.”

Google loves challenging old business models with new technology ideas. Today’s announcement is the search giant’s opening salvo in a challenge to US broadband, which is monopolistic, slow and sees openness as a threat to profits.

...

I sincerely hope the tech and telecom communities rally around what Google is trying to do here. The planned fiber networks are not big enough to excite the suspicions among privacy conspiracy junkies that Google is only running the networks to collect more data about us, and as a new platform for its advertising business.

If the network goes national, those will be important questions to explore. For now, though, Google has a rare opportunity to put real pressure on large ISPs like AT&T and Comcast to sell more bandwidth for less money.

I can get behind that.

More a more neutral report, see the Wall Street Journal, "Google Jolts Telecom Rivals", 11 Feb 2010.

If nothing else, this is PR genius of the caliber we've come to expect of Google. Huge bang for little buck.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things

--- Henry David Thoreau

Cited by http://quotationsbook.com/quote/44734/ to be from Walden (1854), ch. 1, p. 67 .

"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."

I found it via Miller & Page, Complex Adaptive Systems (2007), p. 215