Adobe’s Creative Suite To Be Discontinued As Boxed Software & Two Cool New Tech Books 1. The New Digital age & 2. Who Owns The Future?

Adobe’s Creative Suite To Be Discontinued As Boxed Software: Adobe announced yesterday that it will discontinue its Creative Suite as a boxed-on-the-self-of-your-local-software-or-office-store product. Henceforth (I love that word!); henceforth you’ll have to pay for a cloud based (online) subscription to either the Adobe Creative Suite which includes Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign and Premier (and other software too) for $50 a month or you’ll be able to pay $19.95 a month to access a single Adobe Suite software – for example you can pay the $20 if you just want to use Photoshop.

The light version of Photoshop – Adobe Elements will still, at least for a while, be available on disc and in box at your local software store.

Here’s a link to an Ars Technica article on the subject titled “Adobe’s Creative Suite is dead, long live the Creative Cloud” that will give you more in-depth information on the subject:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/05/adobes-creative-suite-is-dead-long-live-the-creative-cloud/

Two Cool New Tech Books: There are currently two cool tech books that are worth reading if you’re interested in technology and how the quickening evolution of technology does and will continue to shape our world. The first book is called “The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business and it is co-authored by Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen the director of Google Ideas. The book offers a positive view of how technology will transform the way we live and work in the near future even more than it has in the last twenty years. And the second book is titled “Who Owns The Future?” and it is written by one of the leading American futurists Jaron Lanier. Lanier agrees with Schmidt & Cohen in part – he too thinks technology will continue to transform our lives in the future and at an increasing pace but he throws out some red flags for our consideration and paints a somewhat darker picture that the rosy colored optimism expressed by Schmidt & Cohen. Lanier notes how much personal information Internet giants like Google and Facebook are gathering about their customers without their consent, that online businesses tend to creatively take advantage of lower income persons (what he deems a peasant class) and that it really isn’t right that online companies can use personal information they’ve gathered about individuals without their consent to make money.

I haven’t finished reading either book yet but both are fascinating. I agree with the overall view of all three authors – we’re in the midst of a high tech revolution that has, and will continue to transform our lives in the near future in ways we cannot even imagine. However we must, as always as citizens of a democracy, pay attention to what is going on around us – in this case in the online universe and call out on the carpet those Internet based companies or persons that try to infringe on our rights – the biggest rights at stake that we can easily see right now* are the right to privacy and not authorizing without consent online business to compile tremendous amounts of information about you and the danger of the Digital Divide which is still with us and may very well grow larger in the near future.

And when I say “Digital Divide” I mean two things –firstly, that some people cannot afford to pay for the technology and technological access that is now needed to survive in the working and academic worlds and secondly, that inexpensive high speed Internet access, which is also increasingly necessary for everyone in the working and academic worlds to have, isn’t available for everyone.

The first point is an economic one –not everyone can currently afford to purchase a PC or tablet and then pay for home based Internet access so they can access high speed Internet and not only is that an issue now but it could conceivable be an even larger issue in the future – for example, say Google Glass style Internet connecting glasses become mainstream and are needed by working people and students to use for group projects and they cost $1,500 – assuming the price stays that high that would leave some people out in the cold because they simply couldn’t afford to buy the new technology or the Internet access.

And the second point isn’t an economic one per se – there are many places in this country where you simply cannot buy access to high speed broadband Internet service. In fact, I work with two gals that live locally and just far enough out of town that Time Warner Cable doesn’t have Internet cable installed that far out – and those two gals cannot obtain high speed Internet access at home because it isn’t offered where they live! And this is a huge problem because increasingly people need that access to high speed Internet to communicate and take care of educational and work related items and the economic part of the equation isn’t one for customers – it is one for the Internet and cable companies that provide Internet service that don’t want to spend the money to extend their Internet service. And that last point is why the U.S. ranks 12th in the world as far as its citizens being able to obtain high speed Internet access goes.

And on that note I’ll get off my soap box!

Suffice it to say if you’re interested in technology and how it will continue to change our lives you should check out those books!

And if you want to know more about how the U.S. is really behind in offering high speed Internet access to all its citizens and residents check out the following Forbes article titled The Fastest Internet Speeds In The World:

 http://www.forbes.com/sites/kymmcnicholas/2011/01/24/the-fastest-internet-speeds-in-the-world/

Here’s a link to a New York Times article on the Schmidt and Cohen “New Digital Age” book:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/books/the-new-digital-age-by-eric-schmidt-and-jared-cohen.html

And a link to a New York Times interview with “Who Owns The Future” author Jaron Lanier:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/books/who-owns-the-future-by-jaron-lanier.html?ref=technology&_r=0

Have a great day!

Linda R.

 P.S. As always just FYI — if you need help learning how to use that new tablet, e-reader, PC or other tech device you just bought, or got for your birthday, call us! We offer free One-On-One tech sessions at the library by appointment. Call 607-936-3713 ext. 502 and ask for Linda or Jenn.

* I could get into the whole lack of ownership of e-books, e-videos, e-audios subject too as I think that is a major league threat to intellectual freedom but I’ll save that soap-box for another day as I know this is already a rather length posting!

 

References

Cunningham, Andrew. Adobe’s Creative Suite is dead, long live the Creative Cloud: It’s the end of the line for boxes versions of Photoshop, InDesign and the rest. Ars Technica.

Maslin, Janet. (2013, April 25). Formatting a World With No Secrets “The New Digital Age” by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. Online. Accessed May 7, 2013.

McNicholas, Kym. (2011, January 24). The Fastest Internet Speeds In The World. Accessed May 7, 2013.