Telepocalypse

Take hold of your data

I was just watching my older daughter put a CD into the player here in the living room. Will she as an old woman be able to recount to her grandchildren how music used to come on silver discs that had to be read in-situ with a laser?

But here's the problem with the all-digital future. Those physical artifacts are how we organise our data. The shoeboxes full of old pictures determine some kind of chronological order and grouping. Even the different sets of photo print delivery covers tell you something -- that holiday is in the Boots photo processing jacket, this one in the mail-in Fujifilm one.

Perhaps we shouldn't be so hasty in throwing out the artifacts along with the data stored upon them? A stack of CD cases gives us opportunity to browse, and doesn't need yet-another giant-screen remote to operate. Yes, the artifacts could maybe do with a little shrinkage in size. But I don't see her manipulating the 10,000 song MP3 jukebox when she can't read yet.

I've just been prodded by my wife to get the home server out of the 2nd bedroom, so it now lives up on top of the bookcase in the living room.

I've been doing a little bit of shopping for a cheap, tiny LCD monitor to go next to it. The vague plan is to make it display a weather forecast. (British + Weather = Hopeless obsession.) The main market for these things seems to be people wanting a 2nd display for their PC. Again, they're using physcial space artifacts to organise their digital world. It's unlikely that in a windowing environment that lack of pixel space is the driver for buying more pixels.

The day we live in a "digital home" is the one when we'll eat digital food, sneak in some digital nookie and look out at the digital view. It's not a home I'm wanting to live in.

Posted by Martin Geddes at 1:18 PM

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