Decreasing complexity and increasing value: beyond apps and gadgets.

I believe that we are in a critical phase of the history of technology, and by extension, our culture. In many ways, insofar as digital technology is concerned, things have never been so good. Devices are getting ever-less expensive, the applications and services that they can deliver have become ever-more numerous, and also inexpensive, and the human factors are at a high standard, and the quality of user experience perhaps better than ever. So what might be the problem? My argument is that the very success of current technology runs the risk of causing the whole house of cards to collapse. In short, the cumulative complexity of a ever larger collection of simple things will eventually overwhelm. What I will argue is that the solution is to approach technology from a cultural and ecological perspective, where the social relationship amongst devices, applications and services -- and people -- is more important than any one of such things on their own.