Janice J. Heiss's Blog

Putting the Server in Your Pocket

At the June 29, Wednesday morning Platinum session, held from 8:30 to 9:15, Nokia Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President Pertti Korhonen provided a vision of the future that promises to take Sun's motto "The network is the computer" to another level, by putting the server in your pocket.

Steve Meloan does a really good job of covering the technical moves Nokia and the industry are making to enable this here:

so that allows me to wax philosophical :) in this blog.

It's tempting to make this story symbolic of something or other - I don't really know what. Maybe something like the story of the pilot of the plane who doesn't know where he is going but is proud of the fact that he is breaking all speed records. It's all happening so fast, and there is always the law of unintended, unforeseeable consequences.

I found myself wanting Korhonen, and everyone else, to get specific about how this technology can help us. The vision can't just be technological, but one that looks more deeply into the nuances of the implications for human life.

Comments

• Janice,

  I totally agree with your sentiment:"The vision can't just be technological, but one that looks more deeply into the nuances of the implications for human life.
  "

  I would love to see the java.net community play more of a role in discussing what the greater vision of technology should be, and what part Java can play to shape that vision. Perhaps we could set up a java.net "community" with this focus?

  It does sometimes seem like we're rushing to get "there" as fast as possible, without caring where "there" is.

  -- John

  Posted by: johnreynolds on June 30, 2005 at 06:38 AM

• The problem is that "there" is a moving point. We are very limited in our ability to predict the effects technology will have in everyday life. Who'd imagine all the effects Internet and cell phones have had in our lives, ten years ago? Any discussion around this topic would be highly subjective, and could hardly get to any beneficial and concrete result, IMO.

  Posted by: hsteck on June 30, 2005 at 10:51 AM

• Thanks John, Paul, and hsteck for your comments. I very much appreciate your taking the time to share your opinion/thoughts.
  I haven't often gotten so personally expressive in my blogs and it's
  nice to get a response out there. Thanks again.
  Jan

  Posted by: hiheiss on June 30, 2005 at 06:27 PM

• I don't think "there" would be a moving point if technology would focus on reaching social/cultural/humanistic goals.
  Sure nobody can predict the effects of technology - but at the moment, technology just has to make money. If technology would not just be an instrument of capitalism, and it would focus on reaching whatever goal, "there" would definitely be a lodestar - something really worth to be reached.
  At the moment, technology grows and moves to the directions some marketing guys deem "worthwile". OS may not have that goal, but unfortunately, the big OS projects are either more or less supported by big companies and/or intend to replace commercial products.
  I really hope that sometime we realize rushing towards increased revenue, cash-flow, margin or GNP does not make our lives any better, or if so, its just a side-effect, not intentionally achieved. I'm really no communist or something, I think of me as a liberal one and I really appreciate free market economy, competition and globalization. But I really think we need nonmonetary goals...

  Posted by: sebastiankirsch on July 01, 2005 at 01:45 AM

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