Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Memory and power


da boyz

Len was in the war; I was in the sixties and Sammy was in the groove…. having lots of family about at this time of year is great, but it has shown me just how far away we are from the idea of integrated communications technology and why. Here’s a quick device census, conducted this afternoon:

A. Various
1 Sony Cybershot P73 digital camera (2.4 volt)
1 Casio R40 digital camera (3 volt)
1 PS2 (8.5 volt adapter)
1 Toshiba Satellite laptop (19 volt adapter)
1 Remington Hair clipper (4.2 volt adapter)

B. Phones
1 JVC 167 EK
2 Sony Ericsson T610s
1 Sony Ericsson W800i
1 Sony Ericsson K300i
1 Motorolla 220
1 Nokia 52-10
1 NEC (brick) E313

C. MP3s
1 i-Pod 20 Gb
1 i-Pod Mini
1 i-pod 30 Gb
1 i-pod Nano

Now hardly any of these items (with the exception of the i-Pods) have a compatible power cable, surprisingly few can share data, and memory (even across Sony products) is not interchangeable. As a family, when we are not interacting to ascertain the whereabouts of our various devices, we’re trying to locate their chargers or USB cables! I agree wholeheartedly with thoughtsonthings: “Power cords and chargers are one of the biggest scams out there.” But, whilst eBay may be a short-term fix for that missing bit of wire, it’s not really the answer. As technology gets cheaper, two crucial aspects become the focus of commercial activity: power and memory. Power and memory (and then, perhaps, it’s ringtones and wallpaper?).

2 comments:

Guy Merchant said...

Looking back I notice a strange co-incidence of memory-themed posts. We're so used to talking about memory in the context of technology that we overlook the idea that it's really about data storage; whereas human memory (eg memories of Christmas)is so much more than storage...in fact it's not very good at storage, hence the use of writing etc.

Joolz said...

I have just read a book about memories. Real ones from in the head. It was by Annette Kuhn. It was a weird book: it is here