Professor Elam

The speed of technology that can actually be used is accelerating. Interestingly this happened in previous periods of economic stagnation, the 1930s, just as it is happening now in this period. The 1930s saw commercial passenger aviation begin with the DC 3, already underway with the Ford Tri Motor. Color movies improved, and television was unveiled though it would take more work on the vacuum tube for it to become a commercial success after WW II, but I digress. 

Apple will be unveiling its Tablet this next week.

While no tablet or e Reader has had the success its creators wanted thus far, this one may be different. Apple has taken dead aim at the E book market as well as the larger failing market for subscription services, magazines and newspapers. iTunes rescued the music industry with its engaging ability allowing users to selectively pick and choose their music song by song. indications are that the Tablet will allow users to do the same with selected media. This comes as newspaper chains are literally filing banruptcy, it cannot happen too soon for them. 

The subscriptions will no doubt happen through iTunes. The rate of change is accelerating before our eyes. This promises to be huge in that this will be the first tablet to offer color and internet capability.   

I will be writing an article for our conference Southwest Learning and Technology on this topic.