How much innovation is enough?

My attendance at Microsoft`s Professional Developers` Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles made me realise how pessimistic I have been about technology`s ability to keep producing innovation that matters.

As quite a self-discovery. I realised that, like many others, I`ve been labouring under the impression that enough innovation will at some point be enough. But PDC has disabused me of that.

Whether or not you`re sceptical about the need anyone has for future Office software, you should examine your response to technology. Do you trust and believe in its potential and future, unquestioningly, or do you view it with suspicion? And whatever your answer is, why do you answer in the way you did?

I have been quite diligent about my natural response to all new technology, which is to be sceptical until I`m proved wrong. Perhaps I`m admitting more than your average technology editor would feel comfortable doing, but I think this serves my (business-minded) technology audience well.

The same goes for the opposite kind of person, who gets excited about pens that glow in the dark (so they can do movie reviews on the fly) or game consoles that can phone out, never mind how counter-intuitive the handling of the device.

I am, in fact, a closet widget-freak, but for reasons until just now still unclear to me, I have been suppressing this.

Carel Alberts, Technology editor, ITWeb

I should add that I DO have a pen that glows in the dark, but that I suppress any excitement I might feel about it or the urge to use it when I`m supposed to be asleep or watching a movie.

Which makes me realise there`s a whole additional level of complexity to this techno-pessimism of mine. I am, in fact, a closet widget-freak, but for reasons until just now still unclear to me, I have been suppressing this. (I imagine I was trying to avoid losing my cool, weak as I am, when confronted with the toys of the trade).

But no more of this charade! At PDC, I willingly gave myself to the gods of innovation. For I saw innovation as has none before me.

The well-publicised inking and writing capabilities of Windows XP Tablet Edition again blew me away on Wednesday morning in the main keynote of the day. This time, the possibilities of inking were demonstrated to extend far beyond making notes in PowerPoint or drawing circles around a paragraph on an html page, "cutting it out" and e-mailing the snippet to someone (the application that allows this is, in fact, called Snippet).

In fact, inking or doing natural writing on a blank "page" in Windows XP in the right innovative context can put digital "paper" way beyond the possibilities of ordinary paper. At PDC, Microsoft demonstrated a mathematics application for XP Tablet Edition that allows users to write mathematical equations that describe complex phenomena like physical movement, for instance the movement of a ball.

Although this kind of task is outside the reach of ordinary users, a mathematician is able to plot the array of formulae describing the phenomenon he needs, and to simply draw a line through the list - thus easily connecting them into a complex combination of motion-describing expressions, and then seeing the action that this represents play out in front of him. Attendees saw a hand-drawn man with a baseball bat and ball "come alive", hit the ball, not quite clearing the wall, the gravity formula being "changed" slightly and the ball clearing on the next attempt.

"That`s better than paper. That must be the single most impressive thing I`ve seen this entire week," wheezed a Texan next to me once he`d recovered. And having been there to see it in action, I applauded the speaker along with everybody else.

The application demonstrated in that session is called MathPad. Sadly, it is not on the Microsoft Research Web site, but prepare for much else besides, including a celestial counterpoint to TerraServer called SkyServer, as well as some interesting "social computing" projects.

All of which brings me back to the question I always ask myself. Do I, as a result of all this, feel enlightened, or have I been sucked into the machine? I suppose I`ll see when people clamour for these apps or not, but I`ll say this: if MathPad ever comes your way - mathematician or not - buy!