From: Zero Powers (zero_powers@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Apr 09 2000 - 15:48:14 MDT
>From: GBurch1@aol.com
>
>In a message dated 4/6/00 12:24:23 AM Central Daylight Time,
>spike66@ibm.net
>writes:
>
> > Easy question, now consider we are
> > about to see the next round with the wearable computers. It
> > is 1980 all over again. Then it was the new desktop computers.
> > Now it is the palm pilots and their logical descendants the
> > wearables. Getting these gadgets and learning to use them
> > will divide the haves from the have nots even more than now.
> > Right? You and I are cool with that because we are the techies.
> > I hope one of our sociologist gurus will speculate on where it
> > all leads.
I don't see it as a problem. A palm device is cheaper than a PC, and both
will continue to get cheaper and cheaper. In fact, a 166 mhz Pentium
machine is now down to where just about anybody who is not homeless could
afford one if they wanted to.
IMO, the reason for the "divide" is not so much cost as priority. *All* of
my friends could afford PC's and palm pilots (and believe me, I've got some
friends in low places). About half of them have no computer at all. Not
because they can't afford it, but because they just don't want one. Some
folks just don't care about accessing information. And when you take away
the information accessing function of a PC, it really is a pretty sorry
device to spend a bunch of money on. Sure you can play games, watch movies,
listen to music and talk to friends on it, but not nearly as well as you can
do those things with a Playstation, a DVD player, a CD player and a
telephone (and *all* my friends have those things).
When PC's and handhelds have a "killer app" that will even make people who
are not enthusiastic about accessing information say "Hey, I've gotta get
one of those!" then I think you will see a precipitous drop in the
percentage of tech have-nots.
-Zero
"I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past"
--Thomas Jefferson
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