[ExI] google translator

Dave Sill sparge at gmail.com
Wed Jan 19 14:24:42 UTC 2011


On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 7:53 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 4:55 AM, spike wrote:
> <snip>
> > Something we used to discuss a long time ago, we are now seeing for the
> > first time: the elderly computer users being left behind.  My mother has
> > been a computer user for almost 40 years now, owned a PDP 11-780 for an
> > accounting business back in the early 70s.
>

Probably a PDP 11/70. The 11-780 was a VAX, one of the PDP's successors.


> First.
> No, I don't think voice operated computers will ever appear in general use.
> Think about it. What happens when you get a group of people all
> shouting at their handheld computers? It's bad enough listening to
> other people's mobile phone conversations.
> There is a place for specialised applications such as voice
> recognition entry systems.
>

We already have swarms of people talking into their phones in public, as you
mentioned. What difference would it make if they were actually talking
*with* their phones?

Second.
> Old computer users fall into two groups. Old expert users and old general
> users.
>
> Old general users only want a few applications. Their main interest is
> annoying their relatives. ;) So just email, Facebook chat and photos,
> perhaps online banking and news browsing.
> The new Chrome OS laptops or even tablet computers makes this very easy to
> do.
> <
> http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/googles-chrome-os-putting-everything-in-the-browser-window/
> >
>
> Old expert users have the knowledge to pick and choose what they want.
> Most are just not interested in living in a world of continual gossip.
> So Facebook, texting, IMS, even mobile phones, get little used. They
> will probably have a small laptop that multiboots several systems
> depending on what they feel like playing with. They will be fixing
> *your* computer problems!


Don't know if I qualify as "old" at 51, but I'm definitely an expert user
and I don't fit into your second category. I text (it's handy, and the kids
prefer it), I have a smart phone (Dell Streak, Android), I don't own a
laptop, but, if I did, it wouldn't multiboot: it'd run Linux, and any other
OS's I want/need would run in VMs--but I have no need for Windows or MacOS.

-Dave
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