FRUSTRATIONS

Ok, here is a really quick and unedited rant about how users and platforms need to start getting along.
I am sick of Microsoft and I'm sick of Apple. I don't want these platforms that have sustained the average user since 92 but have been been reanimated year after year with no real promises of future abilities. I want my windows platform to be more stable. I don't want to constantly be thinking of what features are missing and that's all I do.

Someone asked me: "John I want my AspireONE to use my Toshiba Satellite LCD as a second monitor." I don't want to Google this and come up with solutions like: make a virtual second screen through emulation and then use VNC over a network. There's no reason I need to multiply my video controller requirement by 2. I keep searching. I find Intel's cross platform display technology. It's on the same web page as their wireless power technology. Sharing information across platforms is nothing new, why is there no solution to this?

Why is there a Sony console and a Microsoft console and why is that no one is capable of distinguishing which is more capable? Why is it I can't install Open SUSE on my Lenovo netbook without understanding linux more than I ever will? Why is it that using the internet my communication is limited to skype or IM software. Why isn't there a more universal system? Why is it that if I'm looking at a platform to build a home theatre on there's a chance it will be obsolete after less than a year?

Why is it technology is in a corporate rut? Sure, on the one hand it wouldn't achieve this rate of evolution if there wasn't that oh-so important element of greed coming from Philips to be the first with an E27 LED bulb or Sony to have the first commercially available 4K OLED TV. But on the other hand, there independent accomplishments are always struggling to get to the end user. ALWAYS.

Why is it if I want to do anything on a new platform. Such as the mobile broadband platform I have to struggle with such a breadth of solutions.

Why is gesture recognition still a year and a half away? Why is it there will be no winner in the next wave of intelligent devices? Why is it the iPhone is still the number one platform and yet limited like someone with Parkinson's? Why is it that when the newest forms of augmented reality are made available they will have no support for different users?

This process needs to end, there needs to eventually be government intervention so that the people can co-exist with technology and tools they need without bending to the will of the corporations. I wish I could code like some people in linux, but I can't. It's a skill I'm not likely to ever develop as well as I would like to. It's a skill most users don't have and that's going to change.

Windows users have a history of being older people with zero skills. In 10 years that's going to shift and the new uni-platform will reveal itself. Because it will be what appeals to the market. A wider and wider availability of tools. And tools to improve the tools we use. Couple this with artificial intelligence in design and TED 2020 looks very promising for the things I have problems with today.

The bottom line is that we can't expect that technology is going to be everything we want it to be.