Friday, July 28, 2006

The Human Mind vs the mindless march of technology

Check out Cnet's special feature on the ten year old Apple Newton vs the brand new Samsung Q1 UMPC. The Apple Newton wins. Surprise... yeah.

The human mind, if intensely focussed towards creating something bespoke, in this case, a Newton handheld PC, vs taking a mishmash of technology, none of them bespoke, and concentrating on the off the shelf components and trying to keep costs down, it's no surprise:

When a human mind is dedicated towards the creation of a handheld PC, SPECIFICALLY, without heed to cost nor uniformity nor UI conformity nor anything else, the result can surpass 10 years of technology advancement.

Samsung shouldn't be embarassed, being in this case the glorified mindless manufacturer. But Microsoft should be, with their billions at their disposal, and 10 years of standing on the shoulders of giants, and yet not being able even to create an OS interface and subsidiary technologies to approximate the decade-old Newton.

When is this mindlessness going to stop, Microsoft? I'm tired of it.