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Friday, March 06, 2015

SCREENS RULE

Just think about it.  The first thing you do before getting out of bed is look at a screen. The last thing you do before going to bed is look at a screen.  Screens are everywhere, and it's not crazy to say that they rule your life!

It's not just TVs, tablets, and phones it's also windshields, refrigerators, eyeglasses - screens rule.  They dominate our existence, they are omnipresent, and we interact with them constantly. Screens enhance our lives but also detract from our time - many wasted hours playing games, binging on TV shows, or browsing, but we can not survive without them.

Cinemas were once the dominate screens. It was a destination providing a shared experience which today offers that same experience only with much improved sensory stimulus.  Next came TV, which was much more personal than cinema, and provided choice in viewing to tens of millions.  Then came the PC and a major shift to our relationship with screens. Now it was super-personal and super controllable by the viewer/user - hence the name 'personal computer'.  The passive viewer of cinema and TV became the active user and the possibilities of use and abuse proliferated.

The cell phone screen came next.  Growing from a simple dial-up device to present day multi-functionality.  Today your phone not only provides voice, text, and email communication but can act as a cinema, meeting room, game player, monitor, radio, music player, camera, and offer up thousands of apps for your convenience, pleasure, and information.  Tablets and phone screens provide on-the-go access to the internet - over 50% of all traffic on the internet originates from mobile devices.

Screens allow us the ability to document and broadcast our lives providing the ultimate in personal expression.  Thus screens have created huge cultural, business, and social changes and, in fact, made the world a much smaller place - all from a device you carry in your pocket!
Windshield Heads-up Display

Now comes the smart watch - the smallest screen.  I recently received a FitBit for my birthday. A FitBit is a fashionable device (a black band in this case) worn on the wrist. It provides me data: time, heart rate, steps taken, miles walked, stair risen, and when worn to bed records my sleep patterns which can be traced and graphically displayed, by wirelessly interfacing the FitBit to a PC.

But the wrist is just the beginning. Screens are and will be everywhere. Heads-up displays on windshields, providing traffic patterns, weather, GPS assist etc. On appliances, on entry doors, on eyeglasses, on almost any electronic device you can think of.

Screens Rule - it's that simple.

Best
Jim

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