ShareVision Blog

My first edition iPad (with wifi!) is now almost four years old. Purchased in late 2011 for the same price as two new tablets. It still works well if a bit slow to change screen directions these days. My mobile phone is two years old, ancient by today’s standards, but still does all the “smart” things I need it to. It seems that owning “ancient” devices makes me a green tech user by default.

In the relatively early days of the Internet (I’m dating myself here) I had a colleague who made it clear over a period of time that she understood and truly believed that a computer virus literally meant that her desktop machine had caught a cold. I eventually had to explain to her as gently as I could, that computer viruses were in fact man made and created with the intention to cause mischief or harm and were not biological in nature. Her disbelief of this revelation was so huge, that all she could muster to say was “But why?... Why indeed?

A sick feeling of dread and overwhelm, a worry that I’m not keeping up, and a sense of helplessness came over me during the most recent Apple watch launch. The feeling continued with every subsequent ad, promo, and lengthy analysis I was subjected to in the media. What’s next I kept thinking every time I heard another Watch ad; an iPurse?

Every country and culture has laws and codes of conduct that are understood by their citizens, especially the laws that can be regularly broken or bended without major consequences. Here in Canada, most of us have likely jay walked, parked illegally, not accurately declared all the goodies stowed away in our luggage, and perhaps been creative with our tax declarations. We have a collective confidence that despite our actions technically being illegal, we won’t likely be audited, busted or ticketed for these minor offenses, so we take the calculated risk.

Archeologists and historians cut fine figures in our collective imaginations. Plaid suited, with armies of textbooks at their side while they study artifacts and papers to decipher the complicated puzzles of the past. How will this be done in another two hundred years? What will our future historians and archeologists actually look through? Will deciphering OMG’s BRB and TTYL be a challenge? Will they be seen as some kind of hieroglyphics that will need to be de-coded? Will they be looking in the clouds?

R.I.P. old friend, you were dearly loved by all who knew you. Your time with us was short. We will never forget you and we shall reminisce fondly about how good we had it when you were in our lives. Yes, it seems unlimited Internet is now dead. Telus made the announcement in Canada last week that we would all soon be paying for our data usage. Which means we would retain our status in North America, as paying the highest Internet and cellular phones fees anywhere on the planet.  

According to annual report by the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute.

“Americans pay far more and get far less when it comes to the Internet than many other people around the world. Internet users in Seoul continue to get the speediest connections at the lowest prices anywhere in the world, with speeds of one gigabit per second costing just $30 a month. By contrast, the best speeds that consumers in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., or New York can get are half as fast and cost $300 a month.”