microsoft

The other day I was sitting in my neighborhood Starbucks surrounded by the chatter of conversation and people hunched over their laptops or newspapers. At one table, however, something remarkable was going on.

Digital giants like Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft  would all  like to be the home base for your mobile phone or tablet. The challenge is keeping you connected to them even when you're doing something completely different.

Planned obsolescence. You expect it with your cellphone and your TV. You're used to it with your car. But your computer operating system - the software that determines what you see on the screen and how you make the hardware work -  has nearly always allowed you to upgrade and stay connected and productive.

Everybody knew that Apple would announce its new, lighter, slimmer, faster iPads on Oct. 22. Only the change in name came as a surprise.

If it weren't for Douglas Engelbart, the computer on your desk might still be little more than a glorified typewriter, and you might still be struggling to remember arcane DOS commands so you could type them into a luminous green C:\ prompt on a black screen. And the multimedia marvels of the Web might not have ever existed.

Do you hate waiting on hold for a customer service rep to answer the phone?   How about that phone tree navigation system that nearly every company uses?  Don't you just want to scream "representative" to the recorded voice that isn't listening?

If you like to watch movies on your home television or in the theater- Flixster is a must have app for your mobile device.

Experimenting with a new app reminds me of high school in the early 70s. The banter is the same.

The following is a guest post from Suzie Mitchell. 

Guest blog by Jacqueline Beauchere, Director, Privacy, Accessibility & Online Safety, Trustworthy Computing Communications, Microsoft Corporation