I just read an article from Cornell University, cited in one of the Global Spec news letters, describing developments with silicon ferro-electric materials. While the research and discoveries are probably noteworthy for potential new applications, I was extremely frustrated by the author's assertion, "These theoretical instant-on transistors could revolutionize the way handheld and more permanent computers work. One need not imagine far to grasp the concept of a solid state computer which doesn't need to be booted, but simply powered off or on. Its state remains exactly what is was at power off and acts like nothing has happened in the meantime the next time it's powered on."

I have been using just such a computer for quite some time now- three years or more, if I remember when I first bought it. Not only does it remember what I was doing when I turned it off, I only have to recharge it about once or twice a week. It fits in my pocket. It is always ready when I need to make a quick note or look up a phone number. I use it occasionally to download data from test equipment, and, if I really needed to, I could get on the Internet to check my e-mail. I can compose documents, set up a spread sheet, view engineering drawings, and just about anything else I need to do in a hurry. OK, it doesn't have the capacity to, say, run an FFT on a real world signal, or give me a finite element analysis, but, then, those are generally not things I do in the field.

Unfortunately, just as these Cornell mavens appear to be so out of touch with what already exists in the real world, the manufacturer of this handy little computer misread the market and has abandoned the product for something more "sexy", which means they are most likely going to fall flat on their face and either be bought up or just fade in to obscurity. A shame, because their original concept was really quite useful.

I am, of course, referring to a Palm Tungsten E2, running the Palm OS.

Now the question. I am constantly amazed at how technology companies try to promote ancient technology as "the latest, greatest advance in the history of mankind". My first inkling that someone in marketing wasn't being totally honest happened a few years ago, as mobile phones started expanding wildly. Back in the mid '80's, I carried a Motorola mobile phone (OK, it didn't fit in my pocket), and from just about any major city in the WORLD (Tokyo, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Turin), I had coverage. It was expensive, sure, but I don't see where the newer systems offer all that much "advance". Back in the early 90's I had an IBM computer, about the size of a hard-bound book with a touch screen- if I remember rightly, it was running Windows 3.2. I bought it through a close-out retailer...A full blown computer, not much different than the net books being touted as the latest and greatest- and probably with more real computing ability that current generations (because back then, computers did not have to support so much ancillary software functions that add nothing to capabilities). And then there is "cloud computing" which sounds to me like a return to the past where we used dumb terminals to input data into a remote computer, then had to wait a day or so for the computer to process the data and tell us we misplaced a comma...

So, the question of the day, why does it appear that the tech industry, both hardware and software providers, are so out of touch with the real world? Could it be, in part, because they have outsourced their customer services, so they don't have to listen to customers?

End of rant...