So, the New York Times, via Slashdot of course, posts their annual compendium of ideas, one of which includes the Caller ID 6.0. I haven't finished reading the whole list but the premise behind the caller ID one sounds great. It's like the way I use my voice recorder or how I interact with people. So, when someone calls, the device steps in and augments your working memory with facts about that person. Very helpful, very useful, and extremely practical. I love it when technology does the dirty work like that for us.
Maybe this is another union of the polar opposites. Humans can only remember so much, but computers can pretty much remember everything at equal retention speeds (cache and training aside). So, this device, in effect, knows all of my friends. And I think that's great, when used for the purposes of reminding me quirky facts about my friends.
Posted by Mark Canlas at December 12, 2004 08:08 PM