The Brothers
Bob Hodgson, McMaster University

Being in my early 60s and desperately trying to catch up with technology, I realized just how "out of it" I really am when I visited two brothers recently, both of whom are what I would consider "leading edge software developers". They book work for a leading I/S company.

My first clue, upon entering their apartment was two of IBM's latest notebooks plced in such a way on the coffee table that one was transmitting photo files by infrared transmission to the other. The "photos" had been taken the night before on their new SONY digital camera (a really expensive model!).

However, what really got me was when they joked about receiving a sack of spices from their mother in Britain (they like to cook). The problem was, they didn't recognize one of the ingredients. To me, the solution was simple - look it up in a cookbook. Not so. The solution was to pick up the digital "FIDO" telephone, plug in the new PalmPilot, go on the web and voila! - within seconds, exclaim: "So THAT'S what it is!"

I aged another five years!