One correspondent pointed out, rightly, that consumers only value what they touch. “The value,” he said, “is perceived at the interface, not in the content.”
I noted after electronica 2014 that the electronics industry was now talking about ‘solutions’ and that ‘applications’ were capturing attention, rather than the ‘bits and pieces’ inside the product.
My correspondent pointed out, again rightly, that the electronics industry has been more than successful in hiding technology away from the user. “An iPad is just a dumb, but stylish, interface to a huge, complex and fascinating world of which they have no knowledge,” he observed.
In my opinion, one of the problems is that few mainstream media outlets talk about technology from a ‘nuts and bolts’ perspective – it’s far easier to talk about Facebook, Google and the like and pass off that coverage as ‘technology’. When was the last time a story about Silicon Valley actually discussed silicon?
Neither is coverage of manufacturing in the mainstream media always helpful. Even though the UK is one of the leading manufacturing economies, some would have us believe that manufacturing in the UK died a while ago.
Who is to blame? Is it ‘the media’ for not telling the right stories, the industry for keeping its collective head down or a bit of both? Or is it more the case that, nowadays, people aren't interested in what’s ‘under the hood’, so long as the product works, whatever it is?
