i’ve just stumbled over a funny yet thoughtful video interview snippet on msdn:
bill hill on why “windows is not the most important os”
though i disagree about the lack of “inner” upgrades for “homo sapiens 1.0” [1] there’s definitely some truth in bill hill’s remarks :) these days, we (particularly business-focussed) cs/it people are often blinded by details and thus can’t see the big picture anymore: in the first place, we shall develop things for people, not a particular platform or os. it’s general human computer interaction (hci) that deserves more attention.
apart from improving traditional graphical user interfaces (guis), there are also more visionary approaches in hci research such as the tangible bits project at m.i.t. (thanks to lili for pointing me to this site ;) or the various wearable computing projects.
[1] ;) for example, think of all the interesting projects at the border of biotechnology and medicine, such as the human genome project. or of the exciting experiments done by wearable computing researchers like kevin warwick, steve mann, thad starner, vernon reed, stelarc, bernt schiele et al.