What Next?

A few days ago I happened to see a video of Professor Pattie Maes presenting at the TED conference on youtube and I was amazed to see the work that she is doing(I have included the same video above) Later I wondered is this really what we need. Definitely it will be useful to communicate with our devices for meta information as referred by prof. Maes, however when I saw a young man getting information about his friend without talking to him inspite of being present alive in front of him I somehow did not appreciate it. The reason is because I felt that using technology for purpose like this may change our natural ability to speak and interact. I feel that it will hinder the natural process of human development. I feel technology should be used wisely as well as smartly. Technology is growing and no doubt surpassing human intelligence but it is still in our hand to use it wisely. Norman says that “In the market-driven economies, new services are continually being offered to public, not because there is a demand but because the companies need to increase their sales.pp. 157”. Here again the same question arises do we need technology to rule us or we need technology to facilitate us. I think we need to decide what we really "need the technology for" and not "what we want the technology to do" for us. I feel it is a fair idea to implement technology that will facilitate us and that does not make us handicapped. Norman talks about robot teaching our kids, i am using some computer voices in my recent project and i feel that they are very unhuman without emotiona and too mechanical, my question here is will the robot sound as close as human voice in the near future. If yes, than according to me it can be a neat idea for teaching kids at home while parents are at work. Norman further states that “Smart technologies have the capacity to enhance pleasure; simplify lives, and add to our safety. If only they could really work flawlessly; if only we could learn how to use them.—156” which is what he is being saying in all all his books, technology must be user friendly and should meets user expectations to survive for long run.