Page 5 - February_Newsletter_2017

The industry we dabble with – computing – is evolving at a fantastic rate.
Computers were in their infancy when we were born – or in some cases
didn’t really exist at all!

Now they are ubiquitous. There’s a use for them straight away – give me
an alternative word for ‘everywhere’ – and make sure I spell it correctly!
It is often mentioned that today’s computers and their capabilities were
first imagined in the Si-Fi stories of yesterday. However, I don’t think
we’ll quite get to the heady heights of matter transporters or replicators.
But we have got close to their communications devices and computer sys-
tems (almost).
We didn’t need a computer on every desk – now everyone has one or more
at home and more in your pocket – at the last count I had 8 computers
(laptops/desktops/PIs), four smart phones and a couple of tablets at home!

You might not want to – but if you cast your mind back a few years, I sus-
pect most of us didn’t want or need a mobile phone – now we all have
them.
Going back even further, we used the phone box at the corner of the street
for social interaction – now we can use any device we have to stay in
touch with almost anyone on the planet!

With the advent of Amazon’s Echo (Alexa), Microsofts Cortana, Apple’s
Siri (and many others) we will all be talking to computers (rather than typ-
ing) in the years to come.
So, even though I may not use social media as it was intended (telling eve-
ryone what I had for breakfast!) and I don’t really want to talk to a com-
puter to get it perform a required task – I’m guessing that in the not too
distant future, this could be the way forward. Social media driven by voice
control might mean that the recipients get to see a lot more than the plate
of food that was intended for distribution!
Each time you open your mouth, you may have to think twice – Is this go-