We’ve all witnessed the inappropriate use of technology. But no matter how often we may see it, such misapplication happens over and over and over again. Such as this electronic kiosk, found just a few feet from the Apple Store in the Columbia Mall, Columbia, Maryland.
Ignore for the moment the question of “Do you need an electronic sign? Won’t an ordinary paper sign work better?” This Smart Screen tells you way too much about almost everything — except whatever it was supposed to be advertising. You can see the (1) boot time, (2) host name, (3) project name, (4) IP address, (5) Ethernet card address [the MAC address], (6) user name, (7) operating system, (8) security patch level, (9) CPU type and speed, (10) memory, (11) hard drive free space and (12) screen resolution. You can also see the error that crashed it: the machine found a new piece of hardware.
A trivial error brings down a Windows XP-based electronic sign. iPhone photo by Lawrence I. Charters.My spouse, afraid that I was trying to break into the machine with my iPad (why would she think that? Just because I was trying different passwords?), dragged me away.
