Is it a sign of technology changing? Apple Computer Inc. has dropped the word computer from its name. The company known for making the personal computer popular and claiming the better GUI interface with the Mac in now known as Apple Inc.
Cannot imagine being called Apple, Inc in the 1970’s when computing was perculating into social consciousness. What would we have thought? Was it a grower of apples, a distributer of apples, a canner of apples, what?
We would not even have winked a thought that it would have been a TV, music or a phone enterprise.
Of course we have the IPod and now the IPhone from Apple. These products embed computer technology. Embedding computer technology are predictions of the 1980’s and 1990’s – computers in everything from doorknobs to fingernails. As well science fiction writers play with stories of embedded intelligence evolving to where we do not control it or understand it (Spiderman 2 if you are looking for a more recent example).
I am not yet an IPod owner. I do see more folks running around with IPod patches (IPods strapped to the upper arm or other body parts). I suspect will not be waiting to be an IPhone owner unless there is a compelling business (money to be made) reason. I am likely to be a holdout for IShades – sun glasses that contain my phone, computer and internet access. Real cool idea for a modern Dick Tracy television series.
But why stop there, how about IEyes. Just pluck them out and place the biotech versions in your sockets. Bink once you see the world. Blink again you see I Love Lucy. Blink again you are Googling. Blink again you see spam. Blink again …
Well Ithink Ibetter Igo Inow. May many happy bits flow your Iway.
Lon Hosford
Reprint with permission from Lon Hosford’s blog.
By Lon Hosford
Internet and Mobile Development Educator and Consultant
Independent software developer with practical engineering project experience for clients such as AT&T, Avis, Bristol Myers Squibb, Ortho BioTech, Chanel, Avaya, Green Birdie Video, Aztec Learning Systems and Verizon Wireless. Lon is well known for translating client needs into useful applications.
An interesting aspect of Lon's consulting work was the creation of industry jobs that did not exist before. That lead to hiring and training college students who were taught dead technologies at a time academia was woefully behind on the paradigm shifts in personal computing, the internet and today the distributed device environment often called mobile.
Lon has taught thousands of students internet web development, animation and programming topics over two decades both privately and academically. He developed Multimedia Associated Degree program and courses for Raritan Valley Community College in the 1990s at a time when Macromedia Authorware and Director were tools. He is the founder, developer and educator for Raritan Valley Community College Web Developer Certification program also having its roots in the 1990s at the dawn of the internet. He also was a key curriculum developer and instructor for one of the Nation's first Web Developer Certification program offered through New Jersey Institute of Technology. Lon was also a technology instructor at the University of Phoenix Online.
Lon over the years has produced educational video for topics including Paradox, Cobol, Java, Jasmine, C, C++, Linux, Flash, Cocos 2d and HTML. These courses were distributed and taught in Universities internationally when global was an emerging term.
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