Mac Soda

Ballmer gave an inspirational talk today about computers in 10 years. Here are the fun bits, analyzed.

When you type the word “Chicago” into a search engine, it will be able to determine whether you meant the city, the band or the musical based on your Internet history.

Uh-huh. So assuming you once looked up the musical Chicago, if you ever plan to learn anything about the city it will be on a far back page? Let’s say I once looked up information about the city Chicago… would that mean that if I ever wanted to listen to tracks from the band, by search engine would be bombarded with information about the city? People look up stuff because they don’t already know about it… how could a computer searching what you’ve already looked up and putting it in your face help you if you want to learn something new?

He said that about half of today’s Fortune 500 companies were launched during a recession, and that companies can help themselves and the country out of its funk through research, development and innovation.

So far I’ve seen Microsoft spend a ton of money on R&D, heard Steve Ballmer talk innovation up a tree, yet haven’t really seen anything that would justify their spending.

He said a big part of the future of computing is in determining users’ intent.

User’s though: “I hate this computer, I need to get rid of it and buy a new one.”

Computer’s response: “Terminate User”