What ever happened to dial and speak?

My old telephone had gone — and in its place stood a menacing new one, evidently top of the range, with a cluster of mysterious buttons around its own little computer screen.

Today, as a card-carrying member of Technophobes Anonymous, I ask only this of a telephone: that I should be able to dial a number and speak to the person at the other end of the line, or pick up the receiver and talk to my caller when it rings.

The Cisco WebEx Connect IM communication system

Yet one glance at the Cisco WebEx Connect IM communication system, mocking me silently from the corner of my desk, was enough to warn me that from this point onward, making and receiving calls would never be quite so simple again.

With a leaden heart, I turned to the document beside it, to read about all the fabulous things that a Cisco WebEx could do, and my old telephone could not.

Apparently, this miraculous machine will enable me to: “Locate business contacts instantly using online presence. Communicate in real-time through the best channel — including IM audio, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), video, or integrated web conferencing

“Ensure communication privacy with user authentication and 128-bit SSL encryption... Control usage for individuals, groups, or your entire enterprise using robust policy management tools.”

But only one question concerned me: “What if I don’t want to communicate in real-time through VoIP, present multimedia clips to my contacts or escalate chat sessions to show and tell? W-w-w-what if all I want to do is ring someone up?”

As you may guess from the above, I was not among the millions worldwide wriggling with excitement over this week’s launch of the new generation Apple iPad3, with its 5-megapixel camera, voice control, super-duper processor and potential to connect to 4G, when the superfast mobile network becomes available in the UK, two or three years hence.

Indeed, every time a new Apple product comes out, I’m reminded of Dame Edna Everage’s brilliant put-down of Melvyn Bragg, over his prolific output of novels — 20 so far, I think: ‘Don’t write any more for a during, Melvyn dear. Give the rest of us a chance to catch up.’

Price we pay for our love affair with new innovation

But there’s a price we pay for our love affair with new innovation, which maybe should worry us more than it appears to.

I’m not thinking only of the sociopathic effects on the younger generation of spending hours every day jabbering on their mobiles or abusing each other through social networking sites. - Daily Mail