Bristling with IT

Technology makes life simpler, right? I`m not so sure anymore. If anything, there are so many 'indispensable` tech gadgets on the market that life is in danger of becoming all the more complicated.

I attended the Genesys G-Force conference in Athens last week. One of the speakers, making a point about the vast number of communications devices in use these days, asked delegates to raise their hands if they owned more than three personal communications devices. Many did. Surprisingly, a number of people also raised their hands when asked who owned - and regularly used - four or five such devices.

And these were only the actual communications devices. People also bristled with MP3 players, digital cameras and portable entertainment or gaming devices. At breaks in the programme, delegates juggled peeks at their notebooks, cellphones and BlackBerrys while also trying to network with other delegates and manage a cup of tea.

I saw delegates arriving at the hotel with notebook bags bigger than their suitcases, trailing cables, chargers and USB connections in their wake. In fact, the modern information worker in transit is in danger of developing a distinctive lopsided walk as he or she tries to counterbalance the weight of the bulging bag of technological 'tricks`. The 'look` is completed with an assortment of cables, earphones and a lanyard holding a memory stick draped - and inevitably tangling - around the neck.

The modern information worker in transit is in danger of developing a distinctive lopsided walk as he or she tries to counterbalance the weight of the bulging bag of technological 'tricks`.

Tracy Burrows, news editor, ITWeb

Fair enough, these people are information workers, and can reasonably be expected to have a bit of a tech overload on their hands.

However, on the 'plane home, I was seated next to an import-export businessman, whose line of work is far removed from the IT industry. He too was armed with devices including a cellphone and a notebook, designed to make his life simpler.

Sad to say, having lugged his notebook with all its cables and charger through various aircraft and airports, he had been afraid to use the wireless Internet access card he`d bought in Greece, so had been forced to schlep across an island every day to access the Web at an Internet caf'e instead.

It`s just as bad when people are on holiday - there are cellphones, notebooks, digital cameras, camcorders, MP3 players and portable gaming devices to strap on and cart around all day for fear of having them stolen from the hotel room. Each one of these gadgets needs chargers, adaptors and accessories, which must be stowed and transported.

We`re becoming 'techno porcupines` - bristling with so much technology that we double in weight and set off metal detectors at 100 paces.

It`s only a matter of time before people start demanding brilliant streamlining that allows for all communications and entertainment tasks to be handled - properly - in one or two simple devices. Without cables.

'They` have been saying convergence devices are the 'next big thing` for years. But I think the time has come for a real convergence wave. Before people start collapsing under the load of their gadgets.