Unless you're still dialing up at 56k, you've heard about, know about or care about E3. And, if you are still dialing up...than notice the tiny microsoft flag on your browser, it's waving at you from the future.
E3 is the Woodstock of my generation. Except, instead of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, or Jefferson Airplane we have Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. Instead of "watch out for the brown acid," we have "stay away from the N-Gage Kiosk". And the best part is, not only do we get to remember the whole event without fear of black out, but we do so with our dignity and clothes.
And the best part about E3: Not a single bit of ineffectual, inoffensive piece of grayish, beige plastic adorning hardware. For the first time, hardware designers are tearing entire chapters out of the
Apple design book. They're offering products that appeal to multiple dimensions of a consumer's psyche. Not only are people* thinking about weekends filled with pizza, Mountain Dew and analog-stick hand cramps; but a whole new realm of consumers are looking at these new futuristic designs and embracing the technofetishist movement with open check books.
Much like the Guggenheim recently displayed vintage motorcycles as art pieces, so will MoMA hang track lighting over these hardwired boxes of _______.
IBM recently sold their computer/server business. Why? Profitably in this tech sector is found in India! But more so because the engineers couldn't find it in their slide rules to add a little bit of soul to a piece of
machinery. If only the history majors from Dartmouth would email the computer science majors at MIT that today's computer is the bifurcated tongue leading the industrial revolution into the future that Isaac Asimov and Gene Rodenberry promised us. And, damn it, we deserve it.
