Like many others, I have changed my way of using computers since Jan 1. Instead of sitting down at my Dell to do my computer-related actvity, I access a computer wherever I am. A 7" tablet and/or 4G Samsung Exhibit II smartphone go everywhere with me nowadays. The smartphone connects tablet and Chromebook to 4G internet service.
That has happened because of the internet cloud. If I start reading a book on my Fire, I may read in bits and pieces elsewhere on my smartphone, when I have a moment. I finished a book last night with the smartphone in bed. The smartphone, and tablet, have gotten a lot better. It is practical to read even a book on a phone.
As for phoning, I now tend to text. I had not really understood the benefits of texting earlier. Faster and cheaper, of course. I just dictate a few words and the text message is sent, to appear at its destination without intrusion, and accessed only when the receiver of the message responds to the alert. This is way better than phoning. Saves a lot of time.
Communications tend to be right up to the minute. I do not need to go wade through a stack of EMail. Matters are disposed of on the spot and do not hang unresolved. Less strain on my memory. Saves time.
I don't need to wade thru the news, either. I get it bit by bit during the day---I hardly need to watch the evening news to be informed, although it remains entertainment. I pick and choose preemptively what I want to know about, anyway, on demand.
There is also a new way of educating yourself at your own pace and time. This will explode to relieve the high costs of education and keep us learning all our lives. I search for answers from internet wherever I am and whatever I am doing. How crude it was to listen to relegate learning long lectures without interaction, and ineffective too much of the time.
Click or tap here for one new way from Khan Academy. Pick your subject. Then click or tap to start. and GO! These are not long lectures but short exercises to get concepts down one at a time all by yourself. If this is too intimidating, just search internet..
As wonderful as our educational system is, it is also based too much on the age-old German system of regimenting students into classes and teachers, as opposed to supplementing their proactive efforts with free and preemtive access to help.
All this has come with a remarkable change in computer hardware, and we are not done with it yet.
Thus the smartphone and the tablet adapt to us. We don't need to adapt to them so much. They are far easier to use, once you learn how.
Plenty of devices are coming. TVs will merge with computers .Amazon's book business depends on innovation. Amazon has started opening stores. Google is coming out the tablets, and stores. Apple started it all. Yet Samsung has just brought out the most advanced small 7" tablet yet. Who, and what, next?
This will go on as long as users want to have the computer conform more to them and not the reverse. It will be happening fast, as prices fall. It will go on until everybody catches up. Life will change with it. Computers will become an invisible part of our everyday lives and an extension of ourselves.
