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Coastal View & Moor News Issue 17
Pupils raise money to help overseas children
iPhone’s Siri can be regressive, not progressive
As technology becomes more advanced, are humans becoming increasingly lazy? Duane Jackson, the popular “serial blogger” who is a top cloud computing entrepreneur, believes this is the case – take the iPhone 4, for example, which obviates the need for typing, and if you do tap out a text it turns “text speak” into full words. Duane, who admits he has difficulty spelling some words without a device to correct them for him, says the technology of the iPhone4S voice activated personal assistant (called Siri), which enables users to converse with their phone and not just on it, could result ultimately in the art of writing – and even typing – falling into disuse.
A
s part of their Harvest celebrations, the children of St. Joseph’s raised
almost £400 for Cafod. They learnt about the needs of children in other parts of the world and held a Harvest Fayre to raise money to help them. The children designed and made cards, jewellery boxes, pencil cases, candle holders and key rings to sell. Parents were invited to come to the fayre and enjoyed home made refreshments.
Each child brought a bottle or some chocolate as ‘payment’ for wearing their
own clothes to sell. The photos show the generous donations laid within an outline of Africa to remind them where their fundraising would be going.
The School Council then met and decided that the money was to be spent on buying a cow, a goat, some ducks, tools for an apprentice, water for a family, some mother and baby care and teaching a child to read. ‘We are delighted at the children’s efforts and particularly pleased that so many people in need in other countries will be helped as a result.’ Alison Toward Headteacher
Duane is the founder and CEO of the best- selling KashFlow online accounting package. He’s not only a whiz at developing cloud- based software, but he also enjoys writing – as is evidenced by the large numbers of followers he has reading the blog he regularly writes on his website (http://blog.
kashflow.com). “Firstly computers came along, and as a result teenagers do less actual writing with pen and paper, especially once they’re out of school – everything is typed. Now along comes Siri who lets them do everything by just speaking to their mobile. Soon they won’t even be typing!” Duane points out that Siri reacts to a wide variety of requests – sending messages,
scheduling meetings, placing phone calls and even answering questions, all without having to touch a key. “This not only means we don’t need the
written word – it also means we don’t have to exercise our brains very much now to figure things out for ourselves,” says Duane. He also believes the “text expansion” feature on the iPhone – which automatically converts abbreviated “text speak” into full words and phrases – will see this truncated form of English proliferated because when messages are received on different platforms they revert to the original abbreviations. “When we continually try to improve on technology we must bear in mind the consequences of the seeming marvels we invent. There is a real danger that what seems a positive, labour-saving feature may end up backfiring and we as humans will regress instead of advance,” he warns.
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