Social Technologies I Want

October 5, 2007 · Comments

Steve Ballmer said the other day that Microsoft was going to work really hard on figuring out advertising. This really bugged me for some reason. I found myself thinking, “No! You have to work on really cool things that make my world better! Let other people work on ads.” This got me thinking about technologies I think Steve and other should make for me.

Personal Area Network

When WiMax stars working, I want to walk into a room with a few boxes the size of decks of cards and toss them down on the coffeeshop table. I want those boxes to hook to the WiMax network, acknowledge my handtop, and then give me the power to invite people to my ad hoc network. Who? Coworkers. Friends. Networking partners. I just want my network to work. Why? Because I trust MY network. No, not an EVDO card. I want my Personal Area Network to be there to do what I want it to do. I don’t want to pay T-Mobile at a Starbucks. I don’t want to share the pipe with whoever else is watching YouTube in the back booth. I want my network my way wherever I go, and I want to share it.

A Cyberpunk Deck

I want the ‘deck’ from Gibson’s Neuromancer. I want a piece of technology like the Nokia N800, or maybe better. I want something ‘like’ the iPod Touch, but not those. I want the device that takes my identity, a subset of my “stuff,” my social networks and my digital reputation, and I want to be able to plug it into wherever I want and make my world right wherever I want it. Oh, with GPS and lots of hyperlocal.

Microsoft Surface

Yeah, that’s right. I want that bitch to be EVERYWHERE, and I want it to mesh. Do you see the theme here? I want stuff that moves ME digitally from platform to platform, from local to hyperlocal to wherever I am. I want the thing to work. It doesn’t have to be Microsoft, but hey, they started it, right? Or they started getting it closer.

What do YOU want?

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  • Great ideas Chris - very well presented too!

    >did he say 'bitch'
  • Great idea. now I am going to spend my afternoon asking my self how to make some of those things work with what I currently have. I would say thanks to Web2.0 most of what I am is available through my Deck ( Browser ) . I have wifi and bluetooth just about everywhere and the Linux box makes a personal server more personal. I am looking forward to OLED ultrathin displays in the hope that between them and multi touch displays we will have a more dynamic interface environment. ho hum .

    its a pity we dont have the Star Wars generation coming out of University and School anymore.
  • The reason I love having switched to a mac is it has made social functions, like uploading photos to flickr, so much easier. I press a button, enter a few tags, and voila! Taking things in and out of different formats, like PDF is seemless on the mac and a royal pain in the tuckus on the PC.

    I'm starting to believe a PC is for engineers and people who want "security" over function. The mac is much more friendly and inviting- the software is designed for humans to use to figure out on the fly, yet there are also videos and great customer support people available, too.

    I recently lent someone an old apple laptop we had, just to play with, and they were TOTALLY amazed. They were confirmed PC people, but are the types who are always calling me up to fix virus problems or networking issues...the PC doesn;t allow them to do self-help as readily. The Mac lets you solve your problems and move on.

    I say this not to evangelize Apple, but to show how important user friendliness and good customer service is in the equation. Mac gives you something that's ready to fly out of the box; PC's are like toys at xmas wthat come without batteries included.

    We have to make the next generation of social networking tools things that are intuitive and user friendly, something that scales with the size of a social network, works on the fly, solves the constant power recharging problems, and simply works without a steep learning curve.

    (Someone else said the reason why gaming is so much bigger on the pC than the Mac is that there are so many other cool creative things to do on the mac, you don;t really need the games....and I've found this is true. For a machine that is not seen as "serious", I get a heck of a lot more done.
  • wow what a great question to get the creative juices flowing first thing in the morning! What social technologies do I want??

    I'll extrapolate and take an extreme look...

    I don't want to carry things around that I can lose or that can be stolen or broken, or at least small, handcrafted and unique. I want my 'deck of cards sized' equipment to look like it was made for a Russian czar or an emperor.

    I want a holographic keyboard and screen that is only visible from my chosen angle.
    I want a nano-cam that hovers in the air at the ready to record my video messages from my most flattering angle.

    I want tiny holographic customizable avatars of my friends to appear when I am communicating with them at a distance. I think I'll make Chris's avatar a monkey with a balloon.

    I want my profiles to be customized to the viewers preferences, if they are seeking a graphic designer I want them to see that side of me first, then browse my other 'hats'.

    and I want quality recognition software that filters out blog posts and comments that are just copy/paste/redirection for stats!
  • Taking this concept five minutes into the future - I want a cell phone that automatically connects to a personalized virtual desktop whenever it detects an authorized connection (wi-fi, wimax, even a bluetooth connected PC).

    This means that all of my digital identity and logins - basically a digital wallet - could be used at home, at the office, on a laptop and at starbucks with the identical look and feel across all of the screens and input combinations you would normally encounter. I can do this now with MS Remote Desktop, but my files and programs are on a specific machine - not living in the cloud where they can be accessed, tagged and shared like they should be.
  • Jon
    I want to wear my network and have it perform the same functions you describe. I want it orbiting around me & with minimal devices.
  • I want that cool "Orbitz" halo that you see in the commercials.
  • I want a daily project and activity management tool (platform, service, gizmo - whatever) that makes my life WAY easier.

    Everything in one neat place, at-a-glance, user-friendly, intuitive, visual-noise free. Runs my day for me. ON my computer - not some teeny handheld device.

    Can't get rememberthemilk.com, looked at backflip.com, use Outlook up the wazoo to no avail (sorry Merlin Mann, just can't get that Inbox to zero... grrr).

    Got any suggestions??!! :)
  • Indeed, being a decker would a fantastic thing, the whole movie style hacker would be nice, not the hacking part but the fact that everything is connected to everything else.

    But the Dystopia mod for HL2 will have to do for now. :)
  • Lilyhil
    Yes, I want all this stuff. And I want it at a price that will not max out the credit card, and do so year after year as everything changes and makes the former obsolete - and I haven't even finished paying for it yet.
  • I want the conversation to never end ... and to be able to "pause" it at my own choice. By the way, in old school terms, it's called "meditation" :-) You can contact anyone you like just by sending out your heart. But that's SOOOOO old-fashioned, OMG!
  • What I want: A site where I can enter a post and have it submitted to Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Delicious etc. at the same time. Does this exist? If so, please enter the URL in the comments section.
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