THE SECRET LIFE OF MACHINES 3, UPDATE 2004

The fax episode looks outdated simply because of my opening statement ‘the fax is the wonder of the age’. Business has become so much more email orientated in the last ten years that the fax machine in my office now sits for days without sending or receiving anything. I feel a bit sad about it, as I prefer handwriting and drawing to tapping at a keyboard - I can only stare at a computer screen for a couple of hours a day. The thermal paper has disappeared, as inkjet technology has become cheaper, so all fax machines now print on plain paper. The big shift, equally relevant to the word processors, is that manufacturers have realised that they can earn much more from selling ink cartridges than from selling machines. Today a cartridge can cost nearly %50 of the cost of a complete machine.  Fax over the internet is now sometimes used, simply as a secure way of sending documents.

Lifts haven’t changed much. When I made the film the experts were predicting a shift from DC lift motors to AC motors, made possible by increasingly sophisticated digital speed control systems, but DC motors have had a revival – I suspect this is because its just very hard to match the amazing starting torque of a simple DC motor. 

Word processor programmes have become a lot more fancy. Today, I would include a bit about Word’s unbelievably irritating office assistant. More serious is the whole issue of programme bloat. As computers have become more powerful, the software has expanded in step. I’m not convinced word processing needs to be quite so ‘sophisticated’, the added features remind me of the 1950s marketing of refrigerators (see series 1, chapter 11). 

Electric lighting is gradually changing – Ten years ago I would never have thought LEDs could become so spectacularly bright! Super bright LEDs still have narrow niche markets at the moment, but it won’t be long before they take over the world. This is good, as they waste little energy as heat,  and as they are naturally directional, their light can be used very efficiently. 

Photocopiers have lost their status as more documents are stored electronically. Some are now ‘digital’ copiers, which are really a combined scanner, computer and printer.  Much of the mechanism has become disposable, in many machines the whole drum and toner unit are swapped every few thousand copies. This reduces the need for skilled maintenance engineers and increases the profits for the manufacturers.        

Office buildings haven’t changed much, though buildings with curved, rounded shapes now seem to be the fashion. To some degree this is due to architects realising the potential of CAD design. It is CAD that has made it practical to design buildings where all the bits of steel and glass are different shapes.  Inside the office, life has changed little – my Utopia Services team have aged surprisingly well.   

Tim Hunkin, Jan 2004