Fujitsu Announces 13.3" Lifebook U937/P and UH75/B1: 7th Gen Core i5, 8hr Battery, Under 1.77 lbs

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• ddriver - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link

  Today you don't want to think how you plug it, tomorrow you will not want to think where you plug it. Naturally, losing the challenge of figuring out which way connector goes alone won't have a sizable impact, but it is not just it, it is a trend. You should be able to see how consumer technology is gradually shifting towards the "idiot friendly", walled garden, and really, even daycare center kind of paradigm, as is loses usability and versatility. And the effect of "that" kind of technology is exactly the reverse - people don't get more tech savvy, more capable, productive and intelligent but the full opposite of those.
  
  I am actually worried seeing how incompetent people are in general, requiring paid support, which is often subpar, for even the smallest and simplest of things, because they can't figure it out. And the worst part is this is not some natural phenomenon, this is being inflicted to people, they are cultivated into dummies, because dummies are far more profitable.

• BrokenCrayons - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link

  That's a bit of a slippery slope argument. I don't think there's any evidence to support an argument that people are any dumber than they were in the past several thousand years. Kings exploited peasants before there were Blackberries and iPhones or USB Type-C connectors. I mean look at how easy it was for a handful of social elites that didn't want to pay taxes to the crown to rouse up a bunch of colonial settlers that were too poor to even have taxable income to fight and die for them only to establish a nation where the general population ended up subjected to those same taxes and there were loopholes for those elites. And people _still_ don't really quite have that figured out yet. The distribution of intelligence by percentage, I highly doubt, has changed overly much due to shifting technologies. We might be more effective at exploiting individuals (look at how many people use data mining services like Facebook, Twitter, and Google with narry a care in the world for the implications) and we might be able to reach more deeply into their everyday lives from a greater distance, but there'll always be a sizeable percentage of the population with lesser capability that will be expoited in a variety of ways by those of greater capacity.

• ddriver - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link

  Well, aside from the fact that tech progress has not been linear and one really doesn't need to look back more than half a century, even if we disregard that, I reckon an ignorant peasant a 1000 years ago knew more of all that is to know than an ignorant working class citizen does today. It is definitely not the same percentage, considering that 2500 years ago people knew FOUR states of matter - earth(solid), water(liquid), air(gas) and fire(plasma) whereas most of the people today can only, if lucky, list the first three.
  
  Now it is true that today there is that much more to know, and that knowledge has been so compartmentalized that scientists which are considered prodigies in one field are clueless ignorants in all others, often to the point they are inapt in things as basic as human interaction. IMO that has to do with objectification of people, a social form that grows people into cogs, suitable for one specific task only. A scientist isn't really any smarter than a toiler scrubber, the thing is that the system need a particular number of scientists and a particular number of toilet scrubbers, so some people will be trained to be scientists, others will be trained (and socially handicapped) into being toilet scrubbers. Not to diminish the merits of being a scientist, but science has long not been about brilliant minds and eureka moments, but about combing the desert, brute force analytical research, where people don't do that much thinking as they do legwork, with scientific achievements being directly proportional to amounts of money you can put into it and amount of science cogs you can afford to produce.
  
  So yeah, even the "smart" people of today are practically dumb, and I mean not really smart but perceived smart by those being stuck in the lower tiers of society. Which is why the fruits of their labor are being put into things that only exploit humanity instead of contributing to it, and all those "smart" people are piratically slaves to individuals that happen to be extremely dumb, greedy and evil.
  
  Things are not definitely staying proportional. A 1000 years back people were not having any illusions that they are not being exploited, they were very much clear on where they stand. This is not the case today, where even though every working class citizens gets the shorter end of the deal, people manage to fool themselves that things are going just fine as long as the shorter end of the deal is not too short. The trend here is not linear either. There were very few people in the world a 1000 years ago, human population has exploded since the industrial revolution, but the planet is already running out of the cheap, abundant natural resources, needed to sustain huge populations, as well as running out of the need of that much labor force, which is all people are good for to the establishment. We are about to hit that point where people stop becoming a needed resource and turn into an unsustainable liability. This will happen 2-3 decades from now, this is the main reason while people are being rendered progressively dumber, so that they wouldn't put up a fight when they become redundant and obsolete, and if that trend doesn't reverse, humanity is in for a genocide that will make the worst of human history combined look like a walk in the park. One way or the other, the "human problem" will be solved, and while genocide is certainly the easiest approach, I for one would rather take the harder but more efficient approach, where humans stop being cattle and learn how to be people.

• ads295 - Saturday, January 21, 2017 - link

  All you, sir, all you.
  And to think I wasn't even going to open this article...

• fanofanand - Monday, January 23, 2017 - link

  I am not refuting your very salient points, but I'm not so sure the USB-C connector is what is going to doom humanity, nor am I sure it's pushing us down the path towards genocide against humanity either. It's a more flexible connector that provides more utility than USB-A.
  
  I guess I will take exception with one of your points. Even in the grim scenario you paint where humans have become unsustainable liabilities, those greedy corporate overlords still need customers. The ignorant masses will not become soylent green, because without them there is no commerce. Just my 2 cents.

• Michael Bay - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link

  Literally please clap.

• SaolDan - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link

  Old ppl have a hard time with usb ports especially micro usb. They shove that cable backwards like its the only way to plug it in. So while for me its the same for other may not.

• WorldWithoutMadness - Saturday, January 21, 2017 - link

  Lol, that's JIS layout. If it were to be sold outisde of Japan, you'd get the normal layout. If you want that kind of big enter, just get ISO layout

• MamiyaOtaru - Thursday, January 19, 2017 - link

  ISO enter key is of no interest to me (opposite really, it puts backslash somewhere I don't want it) but I can understand being happy with it if you use ISO layout :) Betting on ANSI for the US market though. The rest (ports and all) is definitely a good thing, for now at least. Type C I think is just going to become more attractive though, assuming one holds onto a notebook for a couple years at least

• id4andrei - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link

  It's not about the fat key, but about attitude. Compare humble Fujitsu' keyboard and connectivity options with the sheer arrogance of Apple and it's compromises for the sake of design.