TechTrouble: Touchscreen woes, card scans.. it all sounds good but does it work for you?

Zara Rabinowicz Writes...

I love my gadgets, be it the latest phone, a new console or a fantastic PMP player, I can’t get enough of the latest tech or the newest toys to play with. However I’ve recently noticed a whole new level of problems that arise with the newest tech; it’s getting so smart and so self sufficient that some of it is starting to be almost unusable. This was brought to my attention last night when I had three missed calls from my friend. I call her back and she’s like, ‘What do you want’. ‘You called me’, I politely reminded her, at which point she wails, ‘It’s my new phone! It’s a touchscreen and I don’t know what to do’. For your reference she’s got the Samsung U600, not unusable by any stretch, but definitely a little fiddly to navigate when you’re sozzled.

They may be attractive to look at and the lack of buttons does seem to be a bonus, but touchscreens are smudge demons, and pick up dust and fingerprints faster than a fashionista at a sample sale. I found this true on the sexy Archos 704, where while it looked divine was fiddly to use, and not the most responsive. And this is just the tip of the iceberg for fiddly tech, I don’t need to go on and on, but there would be the USB keyboard that didn’t work, the USB pencil sharpener that was just really pointless, the Cone vibrator which took me an hour to open the battery compartment, the laptops that come without manuals or instructions, argh!

Surely if you have the brains to come up with all these impressive pieces of technology you should have the skill to make it easily usable and promote a friendly interface? Then we have new developments that are equally annoying, but in the chilling sense. We’ve accepted if not approved of airport fingerprinting and retina scans, and we’re starting to come around (reluctantly ) to the idea of ID cards, and then they have to push it a little too far.

You may have heard about clubscan technology, data reader which can capture and store informationa from 223 types of ID in two seconds. Clubs have been starting to use this technology to check people’s age at the door, and to use for police responses if an incident occurs. You can understand their urge for extra vigilance considering the recent outbreak of knifing/shootings at clubs recently, but the invasion of privacy here seems extortionately high. Yes, you can opt out of handing over your card, but after a 40 minute queue and all you friends going in your integrity would be compromised. And what happens to all the data? There are so many issues of data protection and identity theft that I don’t even need to delve any deeper, suffice to say protests are already underway to review this controversial system.

It really does seem like there’s too much tech sometimes, and not necessarily a good thing. Clearly there is knowledge available but if the makers of the atom bomb had a little more forethought the world might be a safer place to live in nowadays. Then again, their argument as is that of the nations who went and built their own nuclear research centres was that if they didn’t do it, somebody else would. We can’t stop progress, but we can put an end to serious infringement in our own personal lives, so say no to card scan! And only buy a touchscreen if you can use it.

Zara Rabinowicz writes for Shiny Shiny, Star Trip, and Dollymix and wonders if the world has gone a tech step to far.