On 26/07/2010 16:17, Jim wrote:
There are other similar devices which you may have heard of under names
like Sky+, Freeview+, V+, Humax, Tivo, Windows Media Center or MythTV.

I was gassing to someone today about the poor state of technological
awareness amongst the general populace.

Folks may blindly scan read a tabloid or broadsheet newspaper and flit
across terms such as 'Sky+' or 'Freeview' or 'iPhone' or 'Internet', and
read some scandal happening about matters to do with the product and the
people involved, _but_ they will have absolutely no clue what these
innovations actually do.

Journalism and PR has trivallised things to give inanimate objects
celebrity and fashion status - and only _that_ seems newsworthy - and
advertising is unfortuately mostly aimed at those who have seen one
product and could possibly desire spending money on another.

The hacks could really do much better spreading out the goodness of
technology in everyday life messages out further, but stories like "make
sure your set-top box stays unplugged during the night or the planet is
doomed" is actually dissuasion for people to actually plug in and
successfully use these products.

If the daily maul or the soaraway Sun could, say, run over five days a
pullout guide to technology and joe public, focus on what technology
does, how we are all going to have to get on with it, leave complicated
words out of it, supply humanly accessible links to organisations and
other bodies interested in closing the digital divison, and also give
guidence for who to call (and how to validate their credentials) when it
all goes wrong - we may get that jump on South Korea.

Or, shall we forever moan about closing post office counters .... ;-(

--
Adrian C