high art.. low tech.

i've always believed that great products are not necessarily born out of high technology. they're a factor of creative thought. it's a frame of mind which allows you to obsess as much on the color of the product as on the choice of processor.(i know a lot of people think this is stupid, but i can't explain it any other way - it comes with the package).

some of the most notable consumer tech. products in the last 3 years were - the iphone, the olpc-XO, the nintendo wii and none of them broke new ground in terms of technology. In the crudest terms, all these products were configured with the right features based on existing technologies. of course, the trick is to figure out what constitutes "right".

i was just reading through a post in ars technica on the Wii - "Even though the Wii is the most advanced motion-controlled gaming console ever released, the technology inside the remote is surprisingly basic and already dated." Of course, the Wii blew away the PS3 and the XBox360 and is a cultural phenomenon that an entire generation of kids and their grannys' are growing up on..

reminds me of Alan Kay's - "Appreciate mundanity: after all, a pencil is high technology".