I watched an interesting segment on 60 Minutes last Sunday about quantum computing. The program was fascinating and frankly a little disturbing. When these computers come along with their magic large number factoring capabilities, I’m going to be even more lost in the world of technology than I am now.
Maybe its just me being my curmudgeon self, but I think there are a lot of things with our current computing systems that should be fixed before we take that quantum leap.
One of the most frustrating things about using a computer today, or even my phone, is passwords. It seems like every time I need to access a particular site, I have to put in my user ID and password. It doesn’t matter if I’ve asked my computer to save it or not and, apparently, if I’ve used the same password more then two or three times, it’s no good anymore and I have to come up with a new one. If our kids, or grandkids come to our house and use their phones/computers, all our devices inform me that out network has been accessed by someone new and we have to log in all over again….
The first computer I ever owned was a TRS-80, made by Radio Shack — a few years later, I got an Apple IIC. We used those computers for years — and — when you wanted to use them, you turned on the power switch, waited a few minutes for them to “boot,” and…. and there wasn’t anything else, that was it. You just started using the computer — it didn’t ask you do do anything, or provide it any information before it was ready to serve you. In fact, until just the last several years, that’s the way most computers worked. But today, we have passwords for our phones, iPads, computers, Internet, local area network, some functions in our cars, lots and lots of company sites, banks, TVs, TV channels and even some of our appliances… the list just goes on and on.
I understand the need for privacy and security in this day and age, but it sure seems like the keen technical brains that are working on things like quantum computing, could take a few minutes and figure out how to make us average Joe’s lives simpler by coming up with a scheme to make our electronic gadgets user friendly again.
— 30 —