Rant: Apple Watch

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I won't lie, the smartphone may be the most revolutionary invention of our lifetimes.

Interesting take.

My first reaction was to say it's absurd that the phone is more revolutionary than the internet, and I still feel that way.

But, I go back to what was more revolutionary: the car, the assembly line, or the combination of the two in Henry Ford's model T? it's not a perfect comparison as most people could access the internet without the smartphone where as most people couldn't have a car before Ford. But, smartphones, a combination of phones and the internet...existing technologies, have surpassed PCs for internet usage and I think that people are trending more toward mobile devices and away from PCs everyday.

[TimeForGuinness]

I won't lie, the smartphone may be the most revolutionary invention of our lifetimes. The entire sum extent of human knowledge, music, tv, movies, writing, a high quality a/v recorder, and the ability to contact any human on the planet fits in a small rectangle in your pocket. That's insane.

It is insane.

The smartphone itself isn't that smart without the internet.
The internet isn't that valuable without user input.
The internet isn't that usable without search engines.

Combine all this goodness together and you have basically created THE "human brain"...or humanity's brain...that takes inputs to solve problems, provides outputs to life's questions, keeps track of our histories/memories, and stores our collective knowledge...and doing all of this while transcending cultures, languages, and political boundaries.

It is the most powerful tool in the existence of mankind.

...also I can look at boobs when I poop.

[jim]

I won't lie, the smartphone may be the most revolutionary invention of our lifetimes. The entire sum extent of human knowledge, music, tv, movies, writing, a high quality a/v recorder, and the ability to contact any human on the planet fits in a small rectangle in your pocket. That's insane.

It is insane.

The smartphone itself isn't that smart without the internet.
The internet isn't that valuable without user input.
The internet isn't that usable without search engines.

Combine all this goodness together and you have basically created THE "human brain"...or humanity's brain...that takes inputs to solve problems, provides outputs to life's questions, keeps track of our histories/memories, and stores our collective knowledge...and doing all of this while transcending cultures, languages, and political boundaries.

It is the most powerful tool in the existence of mankind.

...also I can look at boobs when I poop.

The internet has been around a long, long time - basically my entire lifetime. That's my parents generation creation. The World Wide Web, that sits on top of the internet, has been the recent development.

The smartphone, the web - all evolutionary steps, not revolutionary. Little improvements over past discoveries. You really think it's the most powerful took in the existence of mankind? I would go with fire, by a long shot. I would also put the wheel, spoken language, electricity, and a whole bunch of other stuff ahead of smartphones or any type of computer.

[TimeForGuinness]

I won't lie, the smartphone may be the most revolutionary invention of our lifetimes. The entire sum extent of human knowledge, music, tv, movies, writing, a high quality a/v recorder, and the ability to contact any human on the planet fits in a small rectangle in your pocket. That's insane.

It is insane.

The smartphone itself isn't that smart without the internet.
The internet isn't that valuable without user input.
The internet isn't that usable without search engines.

Combine all this goodness together and you have basically created THE "human brain"...or humanity's brain...that takes inputs to solve problems, provides outputs to life's questions, keeps track of our histories/memories, and stores our collective knowledge...and doing all of this while transcending cultures, languages, and political boundaries.

It is the most powerful tool in the existence of mankind.

...also I can look at boobs when I poop.

The internet has been around a long, long time - basically my entire lifetime. That's my parents generation creation. The World Wide Web, that sits on top of the internet, has been the recent development.

The smartphone, the web - all evolutionary steps, not revolutionary. Little improvements over past discoveries. You really think it's the most powerful took in the existence of mankind? I would go with fire, by a long shot. I would also put the wheel, spoken language, electricity, and a whole bunch of other stuff ahead of smartphones or any type of computer.

Yes everything is evolutionary when you break it down....but the internet is still in it's infancy...much like fire was just used to keep warm or cook food. That is where we are at...it is and will the backbone/foundation for everything moving forward. In my opinion it is revolutionary or will be, and I'm not just talking about updating a Facebook status...I'm talking about it's networking capabilities, distributed processing over millions of devices, knowledge creation and distribution, information sharing, entertainment, art, archiving historical records and having instantaneous access to it, etc, etc...all globally, instantly...yes, it is a powerful multifunctional tool.

Right now you have a device that you can access most anything that pops into your mind, you have pictures/videos of it, and explanations on how it works...and you can access that information from about anywhere...and it's the access point is the size of a deck of cards.

[jim]

Yeah, I know it's convenient to have this cool stuff at our finger tips. But other inventions seemed to have more impact than that. Spoken language for example. The printing press - now you could say that the web speeds up information flow orders of magnitude more than the printing press, which is true and important. But the printing press took us from 0. Without iWatches and what not we still the ability to communicate globally, just not so instantaneous.

I think the importance of current day technology is greatly overstated in it's importance to mankind.

[Freed Roger]

I think the importance of current day technology is greatly overstated in it's importance to mankind.

Current day mankind is greatly overstated in it's importance.


Or something like that. we think current improvements in tech gizmos are the greatest thing ever, because we think we are the greatest thing ever -- I mean, just look at what I had for dinner. insert pic

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

If fire is mankind's greatest achievement, I doubt they're long on this earth.

[Freed Roger]

Fire vs Apple Watch vs Garcia Watch...

[jim]

Fire made our brain bigger. It allowed us to cook our food, increase our protein intake, and grow big brains. Then we could exercise these new big brains and put them to use because we now had free time - time where we could stay warm and just sit and think while all the bad stuff that wanted to eat us was sleeping.

[pioneer98]

We have more knowledge than at any time in history and we are finding ways to share that knowledge with more and more people. That's the good side. The bad side is we also have way, way more useless garbage info and also harmful misinformation than at any other time in history, too. I don't know if we actually came out ahead with this or not. Intelligence is roughly the same as its always been since our species debuted.