Tech Tuesday

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/09/09/google.instant.cashmore/index.html

Google Instant search feeds our real-time addiction
By Pete Cashmore, Special to CNN

September 9, 2010

Google this week released its Instant Search feature, which displays live search results as soon as you begin typing.

By providing results before a query is complete and removing the need to hit the ‘enter’ key, Google claims users will save two to five seconds per search.

Seriously… seriously?

Oh, there’s more:

Next up: Google Predictive Search?

Google is unlikely to rest on its laurels now that Instant Search has been released. The only way the company can truly compete with social discovery is by going one step further.

What if instead of guessing your intent while you search, Google could predict your needs before you search? That's likely the next evolution of Google search, according to statements from Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

"The next step of search is doing this automatically. When I walk down the street, I want my smartphone to be doing searches constantly: 'Did you know ...?' 'Did you know ...?' 'Did you know ...?' 'Did you know ...?'” Schmidt said at the IFA consumer electronics event in Berlin, Germany, this week.

"This notion of autonomous search -- to tell me things I didn't know but am probably interested in -- is the next great stage, in my view, of search."

Wow. Just wow. And not in a good way.

As if the hordes of entitled children aren’t bad enough, we’re now going to groom them to not even have to think about what they might want to know? (What a horribly constructed sentence, but you get my point…don’t you? (don’t you?))

Instant gratification. Blech!

Remember when the anticipation of a thing or event was something to be enjoyed?

A month…no…a WEEK without computers and smart phones and business would grind to a halt, there’d be lines of panicked folks at the grocery store stocking up for Armageddon (no, not the film). Just imagine if you couldn’t log on to find out what Ashton Kutcher was Tweeting about. Oh the horror!

We live in a technological age, and the trappings are ubiquitous, but we don’t need to become slaves to the times. These are tools, not substitute thinkers.

A hammer doesn’t drive a nail without the direction of the hammerer.

I would like to propose a Global Low Tech hour.

For merely one hour on one day, televisions are turned off, computers are powered down, cell phones are put away, gps systems are usurped by paper maps (ok, I shall concede the use of laminated maps).

I’m open to proposals for a suitable day.

I was thinking April 3th, which I believe was the date of the first cellular telephone call.

Your thoughts?