*I gotta hand it to Dvorak: they call him cranky, but he consistently says things
no other pundit would say.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2337852,00.asp
"Tech is the tail that wags the economic dog, in case you haven't noticed. When something big is going on in tech—such as dotcom mania in the late 1990s—then everything heats up. Right now there's virtually nothing going on in tech except minutiae. Let's examine the problem.
"First of all, the newest technologies have not been well promoted.
Promotion has always been the key to tech. (((I love him for saying this, especially since everybody pretends that research and development is supposed to have something to do with "technology."))) For example, name the top ten new technologies that were developed last year. Better yet, just name five. Nothing?
Why can't you name them? It's probably because they weren't reported except in EE Times and a few scattered Web sites. Whose fault is that? Well, in the olden days, you could probably blame the media for not doing its job, but those days are over. The media has been decimated, and informational sources are now so incredibly scattered that it's impossible for the media to do its job without help from industry.
And industry has dropped the ball. It's not helping anyone.
The media is trying to keep up. The PCMag.com home page is cluttered with information and reviews. But out of the smoke screen of information you still cannot tell me the five most interesting technologies that developed or emerged last year.
What's missing is the buzz that used to be generated, mainly utilizing a complex mechanism that no longer exists due to neglect—the computer magazine.
People keep asking me to comment on the demise of the print edition of PC Magazine. Okay, I will. But note that PC Magazine is not the first or only example of the disappearance of the computer magazine. InfoWorld had already done it, and Computerworld is a laughable shell of itself.
And while everyone claims that "you can get information online nowadays," the fact is that the online experience is totally different....
(((Suppose he's right. Are we ever gonna have big, magisterial, paper-based, giant buzz-engine computer magazines again? I have to doubt that. Maybe that really means it's all over. No more bubbles ever! Gates retired, Jobs is on his sickbed — hell! I'm chucking it all for a EeePc all plastic Ubuntu box where I can live for the next Dark Age on no-budget long-tail freeware.)))
