I used Nicholas Carr's "software kills hardware" line in a recent blog post; my friend Will didn't approve. Nick said answering machines started out as hardware, but yesterday's physical boxes have disappeared into thin air. Now everybody's got software-powered voicemail. Not everybody, said Will. He, for one, still has an actual answering machine. And he saw plenty for sale at BestBuy. So anyway, I heard a story tonight that I think Will might enjoy...
My other friend Jeremy has been a BBC reporter for at least a dozen years. When I first met him back in 1996, he used to edit studio interviews for radio shows with razor blades and tape. And when he was out in the field, he recorded stuff on cassettes with a Sony Walkman. But during a trip to Taipei, he was presented with the BBC's first electronic system ever. The technician promised that it would allow him to record and organize hundreds of interviews on its hard drive. Everything worked as advertised for interviews #1 through #99, but when he pressed the record button for the 100th time, he discovered that the system had a software glitch. Everything he'd put on the hard drive was totally gone. Oops.
He survived, though. And he doesn't have a Sony Walkman any more :)
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