Is Technology Getting More Personal, Or More Intimate?
Gene Frantz
TI Principal Fellow and Business Development Manager, DSP
For years, we’ve had a stock phrase in the semiconductor industry about the direction in which consumer electronics was heading. As performance, power and chip size allowed for it, we said that technology was becoming more portable and personal. The first part of this phrase, portable, is a given. There’s no denying the fact that you can take your technology with you in a myriad of ways. But I have a small problem with the term “personal.”
Perhaps we chose it because it rolls off the tongue nicely with “portable.” Alliteration is a great way to get people to remember the point you’re trying to make. But ultimately, it doesn’t do justice to the actual trend occurring in consumer electronics. My belief is that technology is becoming more intimate. Let me see if I can explain the difference.
A PC is a personal computer, and while we all spend a lot of time in front of ours, our relationship with that particular technology isn’t intimate as I would term it. For example, if a friend needs to check his or her e-mail, they have no problem accessing it on my computer. It sits on my desk, so it’s personal, but the information accessible on it covers a wide range – and that’s hardly intimate.
But my Blackberry is intimate. The information streamed to me wirelessly to a handheld device is strictly mine. Friends, no matter how close, can’t use it to any great affect. A good analogy is that you would give some one the shirt off your back – that’s personal – but you wouldn’t let them use your toothbrush – intimate.
And the trend continues to reinforce this notion of intimacy. MP3 Players hold the music you choose, your preferences. Technology like the Sling Box from Sling Media allows you to watch your television from no matter where you are on any video enabled wireless device, but your friend can’t watch his TV on that device. Although the Sling box is not portable, it makes my home entertainment content portable (I am also, by the way, very glad to have both of these technologies available to me while I am traveling internationally right now).
We’ve seen other trends that reinforce this idea. First was entertainment anytime you wanted it. TiVo and similar technologies allowed us to see our shows when it was convenient to us, making that entertainment more intimate to us. Now, with Sling Box and other technologies, we can get entertainment at anytime, anywhere we want it, thus it becomes just that much more intimate.
Of course, the ultimate in intimate technology, which some have predicted, will be that which is embedded into a human. Most of us won’t be ready to take it that far; but what about our grandchildren? As I have suggested many times, the technology will be available long before we, as a society, will be willing to accept it.