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"In 1970 I found little difficulty staying 30 years ahead of the man in the street, and now I find it difficult to stay 18 months ahead of the man on the street."
- Vernor Vinge
 |
| Hotdesk | ||
| A desk space that was itself ready for input. |
Just a term, really; not a lot of explanation. The concept, it seems to me, is that of a desk that has all of the functions of a modern cubicle built-in: phone, computer, network access, and so forth.
| She propped her feet on the ledge of a hotdesk. She wore meticulous little reproductions of lineman's boots, buckled across the instep and stoutly laced to the ankle. |
| Technovelgy from Idoru,
by William Gibson. Published by Putnam in 1996 Additional resources -
|
As a person who has spent a considerable part of his life in cubicles, I'm trying to imagine one that would be higher tech and more interesting. So, rather than thinking of a computer as something you add to a cubicle, imagine sitting in the computer or being surrounded by it. The calendar on your wall? A flat panel display with a touch screen. The phone? Can't even see it; you come in and the cube tells you what you missed, including emails. Sit at the desk anywhere, and a keyboard is projected from little ports onto the desk surface; your finger motions tell what needs to be typed in (or dialed, in the case of a phone number).
When will Steelcase get together with Gateway and produce the hotcube? Only time will tell.
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'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
