After hours Toolkit

Story: Ten things holding back tech

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Interesting write up - disagree with a few points

I'm not sure I agree with Windows desktop as holding back technology. Matter of fact, the only ones held back are the 10% of the population that can acutually use a system to its full potential. My users operate on Windows, Linux, and Solaris... They require more "personal" time from our SysAd's on the *nix side of the house then imaginable. We even sat a SysAd right next to them permanently.

Point to be made is, developers can develop new apps faster and with more capability because of Windows API's than for *nix. So the new releases are 6 months to year ahead of their *nix counterpart. Then add the familiarity of the the Windows desktop because users check their mail and surf the web at home and they are 10x more efficient than the *nix users. I think the *nix develops are holding back the industry by not creating standard API's for "numerous" desktops.

Processor speed is an intersting animal. Once again it's not the chip manufacturers at fault here. It's the industries delay in adapting new technology. *nix, particularly Solaris has been operating at 64bit for close to 10 years. I have been using XP 64bit and now Vista 64bit for the last 2-3 years and refuse to load the 32bit versions. I find it amazing that developers write code for 32bit first and 64bit as an after-thought. Shouldn't it be the other way around. I can't even find 64bit drivers or code for some hardward or apps. This isn't saying that 64bit is the answer, but the "industry" lacks the desire to change and opts for backwards compatibility. In the past I could not say MS without some derogatory comment before or after. Now MS is one of the first to develop a new app (directX 10.0) that is extremely limited in backwards compatibility. Not to mention only offer it on their newest operating system. MS is forcing new technology and upgrades and everyone is balking at it????

What of x86 architecture. I surely thought we would be operating on a new architecture by 2008. Years ago their were talks of rewriting operations to function with less datastreams. IE. 3bit computing that performs the same amount of instructions in the same time a 32 or 64bit cycle could.

If Intel and AMD offered a new chip that made all your old applications obsolete, would the consumer be willing to purchase a new machine and all new applications? I would... Just like I upgraded to Vista 64bit when there was limited support. And the same reason I write manufacturers and post to their forums like Symantec asking why they do not support 64bit yet? (Recently they have added support for Vista 64bit, but do not offer a XP 64bit solution with their "new" Norton 360 app.)

The innovation on input devices makes me laugh a little. I did a little test to see how fast I write, and then counted my WPM while speaking clearly as if dictating. QWERTY does me no wrong. The only invention I can see outperforming QWERTY would be a mind reader or USB port behind my right ear directly inputing my every thought onto the screen.

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