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As I write this, I’m sitting in seat 17F. My air speed is about 517mph, and I’m 35,146 feet above Limon, Colorado. Last year, this would have been a boring five-hour plane ride. This year, my hours in the air feel no different than kicking back at home on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I’m on a computer, farting around on the Internet. And while that’s undoubtedly nice, I really want—no, that’s not right—I need more.
You know the question everyone always asks: “If you could choose one superpower, what would it be?” The unimaginative types say they want an adamantium skeleton or X-ray vision, but I’m not interested in “classic” superpowers. I want instant brain-level access to the Internet. I want to know everything there is to know about everything—or at least have that information available at the speed of Google*. And I want all the relevant info at any given time displayed in a context-rich overlay on top of whatever I’m actually looking at. That’s not too much, is it?
Sure, I can approximate that experience today by whipping out my trusty iPhone and hitting the net, but that still takes too long. I’ve got to extricate the phone from my pocket, turn it on, open the browser, then type my query. Taking a few minutes to get the answer to a simple Google query is too long for me. The funny thing is the problem isn’t bandwidth, it’s the formfactor. The hardware needed to make this happen is here, but it’s not been combined, Voltron-style, into the perfect device.
In the meantime, there’s got to be a better formfactor for mobile Internet devices. While I love having Internet functionality integrated in a phone, maintaining a balance between portability and utility is tricky—the device needs to be small enough to fit in a jeans pocket but still include a big, Internet-friendly screen. Much-maligned display glasses could help close the gap, but there’s probably even better tech than that waiting in the wings.
I’ll keep my eyes peeled for new hardware, but until it arrives, how do you cope?
*The speed of Google is roughly one query every 0.18 seconds, or roughly 20,000 queries an hour.
Links:
[1] http://www.maximumpc.com/user/willsmith
[2] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/columns/release_notes_dont_let_economic_woes_keep_you_being_maximum
[3] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/columns/release_notes_this_column_brought_you_letter_t
[4] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/5_reasons_you_shouldn%E2%80%99t_upgrade_iphone_3g_s
[5] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/mobile_internet_devices
[6] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/release_notes
[7] http://www.maximumpc.com/articles/columns/release_notes
[8] http://www.maximumpc.com/articles/magazine/2009
[9] http://www.maximumpc.com/articles/magazine/2009/may_2009
[10] http://www.maximumpc.com/articles/magazine
[11] http://www.maximumpc.com/articles/columns
[12] http://www.maximumpc.com/user/login?&commentfragment=comments_top_anchor