Schol-R-LEA wrote:
Well, that would be difficult to say, since it's hard to speculate on something that didn't happen.
I suppose it is possible to predict the answer. One button "Do it all". It still doesn't work? We lack any real groundbreaking development!!!
But now seriously. Can you ever imagine 20 years ago an iphone? There was the Newton device and it even really kept your notes and was able to show them to you. But iphone?! It's like something called supercomputer those times. And not only hardware, but also UI ideas were very far from it. And the phone itself - what was the cell phone cost those times?
Or you can compare this forum with those text-only use-net conferences. How many actions were required to post a message? Today it's just "login","read","quote","edit","post". Two productive and three helper actions. How much time is required to execute the helper actions? One second for "quote", another second for "post" and no time for "login" if you use "remember me" option. Then it is worth to compare formatting, embedded images, attachments and many more forum features. Of course, we can say "human is a straightforward reimplementation of ape" and to argue that it is still possible to use old style conferences. But for some reason people prefer modern forum software.
Schol-R-LEA wrote:
I have often said, somewhat facetiously, that the last really innovative developments were the invention of the spreadsheet model (1976) and the Lempel-Ziv series of compression algorithms (1977-1981), and while that's an exaggeration, it is rooted in a kernel of truth.
I very rarely use spreadsheets. So I can't say it was "really innovative development". It means there are opinions and they are different. Somebody likes zip algorithm, but somebody else likes iphone. Your excitement was in the past and now it just burned away. But other people still have a fire within and see the world much brighter.
Schol-R-LEA wrote:
I don't know how to force innovation, but somehow we need a real breakthrough, something really disruptive and new.
May be we just need a way to excite the burned people again? The innovations are here, the disruptive changes are happening every second, but sometime it is hard to notice them, especially if your eyes look back to the burned past.
One secret for a really good innovation - just take something bad and make it much better. In the end you will like the result