This is the Modem World: Please fix two things

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

This is the Modem World Please fix two things

We can all agree that technology is pretty cool. It allows us to communicate with one another, entertain ourselves, meet new people, learn new things and even find love and health. We love to discover new technologies, see it do amazing things and get a glimpse of the future. We, the early adopters, are pioneers, beta testers and happy to be first in line. This is all good.

But despite our hammering, our pleas and our shouts from the tops of the greatest blogs we know, some bad things just don’t change. When I say “bad things,” I’m talking about two annoying little facts of technology that, in my opinion, don’t need to be so painful. These are things we can and should fix.

Perhaps we’re not heard loudly enough, or perhaps the technology isn’t there to fix what we want, or maybe the manufacturers have better things to do. Whatever it is, let’s list those things out here, perhaps so that some engineer or product designer will read this and think, “Why, yes… Yes. I should fix this.”

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This is the Modem World: Why we troll

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

This is the Modem World Why we troll

Back when the PlayStation 2 was the world’s most popular game console, the original Xbox was struggling to gain a post-Halo audience and the GameCube was a cute diversion with a couple decent titles, I trolled gaming message boards. I was so sure that anyone who bought anything other than a PS2 was out of their mind that I set on the most immature mission in history: to inform the masses, proselytize the word as handed down by Hirai-san, and ridicule those who were wasting their time with The Wind Waker.

Those who were active gamers at the time probably read that paragraph and are now either annoyed or cracking a wry smile in understanding. The latter are the ones who played Ico. Those who weren’t gamers at the time can insert their own products into the mix for context.

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This is the Modem World: The internet used to be better

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

This is the Modem World The internet used to be better

Back in the ’90s — before many of you were born — the internet was much better than it is today. I’m only halfway kidding, too. Let me explain.

At the time, we were sure anything was possible. We were also pretty stupid. We launched sites that just sold socks. Others sold balls. Social networking was just something we did — we didn’t need a site or a name for it. We were happy to go out at night and create real-life memes over drinks regarding the 2-minute video that took all afternoon to download.

Every site was new and fresh and daring. Two of the most shameless sites of the time introduced something that I am afraid we will never get back. Those sites were Kozmo.com and Urbanfetch.com. Some of you will remember them fondly. Others might recognize the names. Others, well, sit down and listen to a story of yesteryear when unicorns roamed the earth and virtually anything was available to your door within an hour at any hour.

Both Kozmo and Urbanfetch — we’re still not really sure which one came first — would deliver items to your place within an hour. If they didn’t get it to you within an hour, you got a discount or a gift certificate code. You could rent a DVD that was returnable to any mailbox-like receptacle on street corners. You could order a pint of ice cream that came sealed in its own freezer bag. You could order a stereo and make some poor soul carry it up five flights to your walk-up apartment on the Lower East Side. You could order a case of beer.

And we did.

Oh, how we did.

We ordered frozen pizzas in the afternoon, shampoo at midnight and boxes of fresh coffee in the morning. We were crazy addicts, sucking at the teat of ridiculous convenience. We were sure this was the future. We didn’t step inside real stores. Who needed real stores when it all came to you?

And then it all ended. Someone realized that selling stuff at a discount, warehousing it, paying couriers to carry it around major cities and doing it at little to no cost to the consumer wasn’t a very sustainable business plan.

The first few months without our citywide concierge services were rough. We were incredibly spoiled by the whole thing, and walking into regular drug stores to buy cold medicine felt foreign, ancient and wrong.

We didn’t know it then, but we had emerged from the magical era of the internet and into the rational, present one filled with marketers, social networking experts, advertising schemas that made money and business plans that placed a premium on profitability rather than straight-up awesome. The sorcerers were gone, replaced by search engines and cookies.

Some other reasons the internet was better:

  1. Not everyone was on it. While there were plenty of trolls and not-so-smart people already, there was a certain headiness to it all. Maybe it was pretentious — who knows — but there was a lot more interesting experimentation going on. Sites like Word.com, Charged.com, Suck.com and Slate.com were changing the way we were entertained.
  2. There was no social networking. Your high school friends weren’t online, weren’t posting pictures of their children and weren’t announcing their relationship status.
  3. It was slow. As much as we love instant streaming video, the slowness of the internet forced people to return to the real world and find other forms of interaction.
  4. Cool Site of the Day. The internet was so small that we looked to this one DJ-like site to tell us what was new and noteworthy. It was exciting, surprising and sometimes amazing.
  5. It was innocent. The world was still super optimistic, the economy was irrationally on fire and criminals hadn’t yet realized that the internet was a great place to do all sorts of nasty things.

Yes, it was a silly era, and yes, it had to end. But we enjoyed it while we could, and someone out there like me still keeps a Kozmo bag in the back of a closet just for memories. And because it’s great for picnics.


Joshua Fruhlinger is the former Editorial Director for Engadget and current contributor to both Engadget and the Wall Street Journal. You can find him on Twitter at @fruhlinger.

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This is the Modem World: Please don’t personalize me. I know who I am

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

DNP This is the Modem World TKTKTK

Here’s the thing: I know who I am. I don’t need Facebook or Google or Microsoft or Apple or anyone else to collect data and tell me what I’m interested in. I’m pretty sure I know what I like and don’t like. I’m also pretty sure I know my friends, and if I am looking for a recommendation on something, I’ll hit particular ones up based on what I know of who knows what. Know what I’m saying?

This week Facebook announced its new search technology that a lot of us knew was coming. The premise is, if I may minimize, that what my friends like is probably good for me. I can see how scientists may think that this is plausible, but in reality, this can’t be further from reality.

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This is the Modem World: Why I don’t like lists — a list

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

DNP This is the Modem World Why I don't like lists  a list

It’s both the end of one year and the beginning of another, and that means we’re inundated with best-of, worst-of and something-of lists from all of our favorite — like this one — tech media outlets. I don’t like lists.

But lists are useful. I’ve been guilty of making lists. They’re nice ways to organize a year, and they get people talking about why X is No. 1 and Y is way down at the bottom. It brings out our inner fanboy, exposes us to products we wouldn’t normally consider and makes for an easy reading experience.

Therefore, I present to you a list… about why I don’t like best-of product lists.

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This is the Modem World: Things we’ll be returning

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

DNP This is the Modem World Things we'll be returning

We’re the family techies. The nerds. The ones who answer all your questions at family holiday gatherings about setting up new tablets and killing viruses. And it’s sweet of you to buy us gadgets, but the chances of you getting us something that we don’t already have and something that we actually want are, honestly, slim. So we take the gifts, say “How did you know?” and quietly return them for things we actually want. Don’t take it personally. It’s just that we kinda know what we’re doing when it comes to ones and zeros.

Therefore, I present to you the things we will be returning this week. And if you’re the friend or loved one of a propeller head, perhaps this will help you next year.

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This is the Modem World: We’re all a bunch of cranky old men

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

DNP This is the Modem World We're All a Bunch of Cranky Old Men

I’ve been studying online communities since 1994, believe it or not. My master’s thesis was called “Escape to Cyberia: Subcultures as Agents of Change.” Go ahead, make fun of me for the title. It’s cool.

But back then, no one — or at least, very few people — studied online communities as fodder for social science. I set out to prove that people could actually form social bonds and even social structures — in this case subcultures — online. I then went on to show that what happens online can affect what happens in the “real world.” Several professors at the University of Chicago thought I was insane — “Real world vs. online? What is this, ‘Tron?!'” — but I aligned myself with a forward-thinker named David Laitin who, too, was ready to accept our future robot overlords.

At the time, Usenet wasn’t the dark, gritty back alley of the internet that it is now. Newsgroups were full of discussion, moderation and netiquette. They were, if you will, “where it was at.” I was a daily contributor and reader of alt.mountain-bike, where at least 100 new messages about trails, bike maintenance and burritos kept my attention. It was, you might say, just like Reddit. Sorta.

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This is the Modem World: Give me the keys, I’ll drive!

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

DNP This is the Modem World Give Me the Keys, I'll Drive!

“Give me that” I huffed, teeth clenched.

Snatching the iPhone from my friend’s hands, I swiftly pulled up directions to The Grove despite the inadequacies of Apple’s new Google Maps replacement. While I’d rather have the old Google Maps back, I was able to work around the quirks and get what I needed.

On Saturday, my fiancée and I sat down to watch a movie on Netflix. She simply handed the remote to me as she knew I’d have things set up in no time: I knew which activity to select on the Harmony One, to switch on the PS3 and how to search on the console’s version of the Netflix app (each one is bizarrely different for some reason).

Yes, she could have gotten us there, but I’m a better driver. She would have used the Netflix app on our connected TV. It works, but it uses the TV’s speakers and I need to watch things with glorious 5.1. Does she care? Not so much.

But she knows that I drive our tech better than she does and she’s happy to leave it to me.

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This is the Modem World: Give me the keys, I’ll drive! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Oct 2012 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is the Modem World: Why are printers stuck in the 20th century?

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

DNP This is the Modem World Why are printers stuck I'm the 20th century

There was a time — early in my computing career — that your average printer could output better results than any screen could. In the days before WYSIWYG word processors, we would guess what the printed product might look like and then let an Okidata monstrosity scream out ugly 5 x 7 dot matrix results.

When it worked, it worked well, and we were thrilled that our 16KB machines could make something real. A continuous ream of paper was fed into the printer and we’d happily tear the perforated pages apart like birthday gifts from the digital deities.

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This is the Modem World: Why are printers stuck in the 20th century? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Oct 2012 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is the Modem World: Why we fight

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

This is the Modem World Why We Fight

I think I figured out why we love to argue about technology. It came to me via the wisdom of my mom, not surprisingly.

It started last Sunday, when I was at her house to mooch some lunch while helping her get photos off of her digital camera and onto a sharing site so she could, ahem, share them. She was complaining that younger generations won’t have photo albums, those lovely, physical relics of days gone by that mother and son can pore over and share memories.

“But, we’ll have Facebook Timelines,” I replied, sheepishly.

She glared.

I glared back.

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This is the Modem World: Why we fight originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Sep 2012 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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