iTwin USBStorageThe iTwin USB drive offers two

unique advantages. First, the

drive’s capacity is limited only by

the computers to which it con-

nects. Second, the information

is secured with military-grade

256-bit AES encryption. The drive

is composed of two identical

halves that connect any two

computers you choose, no mat-

ter the location. As long as the

computers can go online, their

storage is safely available to the

other half of the drive. iTwin

describes its drive as the most

secure “personal cloud USB

device.” The transfers are made

without the storage charges

usually associated with conven-

tional cloud accounts—you’re

storing and sharing information

on two computers you have

agreed to connect. You plug one

half of the iTwin into your local

computer and drag and drop the

files you want to be accessible

to the other half. When the other

part is plugged into a

remote computer online, it

can access those files you have

given permission to share. You

can copy files from the remote

computer back to your base,

using the same drag-and-drop

procedure, and you can also do

back-ups and editing on the

remote computer. For security,

you can set a password on both

halves by plugging the two con-

nected halves into an online

computer and selecting “Security

Options” and “Set iTwin Pass-

word.” And you can disable the

remote connection simply by

unplugging the local USB half.

A new feature called Multi

allows a user to plug multiple

iTwins into a computer and then

hand their halves to different

people to share different sets of

files with each person, depend-

ing on the half they are traveling

with. iTwin is Windows and

Mac compatible.

www.iTwin.com

Lenovo TabletsThe producer of ThinkPad note-

books has released three new

tablet computers, one primarily

for business and two for home

and business. The IdeaPad Tablet

K1 for general consumers and

the ThinkPad Tablet for business

customers offer the choice of

Android and Windows 7 operat-

ing systems. The ThinkPad Tablet

is designed for easy IT support,

with access to Lenovo’s full

portfolio of enterprise-level

services. The 10.1-inch WXGA

(1,280 ✕ 800) display is

scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla

Glass, and the tablet weighs

only 1.65 lbs. It has a full-size

USB port, full-size SD card slot,

and a miniature HDMI for con-

necting to external projectors

and displays. There’s built-in,

layered data security and a suite

of business

partner

solutions, including virtual desk-

top support with Citrix Receiver,

and secure e-mail. DataViz

Documents to Go is preloaded,

and it allows viewing and edit-

ing of Microsoft Office docu-

ments. There’s WiFi connectivity

and 2GB of free cloud storage,

and you can sync files and fold-

ers every time you plug your

tablet into a Windows 7 PC. You

can plug in the optional Key-

board Folio Case with optical

TrackPoint for more convenient

typing and mouse control, and

there’s an optional digitizer that

will let you take handwritten

notes. For a description of the

different models, visit

www.lenovo.com/tablets.

Adobe Photo-shop Elements 9The photo-editing program Pho-

toshop Elements 9 from Adobe

provides all you need to store,

sort, share, and edit your pho-

tos. You can use the automatic

People Recognition function to

find photos of particular people

and then organize and store all

your photos and videos in one

place. Visual tags help in the

organizing, and you get auto-

matic online backup and 2GB

of storage—enough for up to

TECHNOLOGY

TOOLSof theTRADE

66 S T R AT E G IC F I N A N C E I S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 1

1,500 photos. You can easily

share photos on Facebook or via

e-mail or on websites, and there

are a number of projects, includ-

ing calendars, cards, photo

books, online albums, and flexi-

ble layouts for CD/DVD labels.

New photo repair functions

include layer masks for layered

compositions; new photographic

effects including reflections, por-

trait effects, pop art, and more;

you can match the style of

favorite photos with others; and

you can do instant, one-click

repairs such as whitening teeth

or intensifying blue skies, fixing

red-eye, and improving skin

tones. The how-tos and tips and

tricks sections have been

enhanced, as has the popular

panorama function, which

allows stitching multiple images

together. You can even work

directly with raw camera image

files for higher-quality results.

www.adobe.com

GriffinTechnology A-FrameAmong the hundreds of thou-

sands of apps for the iPad, there

are many clocks, calendars, live

stock feeds, checklists, and con-

stantly refreshing news feeds.

All work much better if the

tablet is visible, standing on

your desk. For a sturdy and very

handy desk display, the Griffin

A-Frame is both solid and

stable. Made of heavy-duty

brushed aluminum, it holds the

iPad’s smooth aluminum back in

a soft silicone cradle. You can

set it up in portrait or landscape

mode for viewing videos or

photos, and there are grooves

to permit an unobstructed

sound feed from the device’s

speakers. Docking and charging

is unobstructed, and the easel

will serve readers and Web

browsers as well as business

users. The cradle will accommo-

date iPad cases from Griffin

and many others.

www.GriffinTechnology.com

Fifty years ago last month, IBM made its revolutionary

Selectric typewriter available to the world. And 25 years

ago, in 1986, the production of the Selectric ended. This

year, the United States Post Office created a commemora-

tive stamp honoring the designer of this iconic piece of

technology and included it in the commemorative series

called Pioneers of American Industrial Design, issued in

June. There are 12 stamps in the series, each honoring a

designer by name and including an illustration of his or

her work. Walter Teague’s Bakelite “Baby Brownie” is on

one of the stamps, as is Henry Dreyfuss’s 1937 Model 302

Bell desk telephone. The hardware selected for the Eliot

Noyes’s stamp was the 1961 Selectric.

1961

Thomas J. Watson, Jr., was elected chairman of the IBM

Board in 1961, and the world-class Thomas J. Watson

Research Center opened in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. Sev-

eral IBM products debuted that year. “IBM introduce[d]

the ‘Selectric’ Typewriter, an electric typewriter which

uses golf ball-shaped typing elements rather than type

bars or movable carriages; the ‘Executory’ PBX dictation

system and portable dictating unit; the 1710 control sys-

tem; the Hypertape system; the 1301 disk storage; and the

high-speed 1403 printer.” (IBM Highlights, 1885-1969)

In its first quarter-century, 13 million Selectric type-

writers were sold. The new design accepted multiple

typefaces by simply unsnapping a small top lever and lift-

ing and replacing one letter ball with another. Correc-

tions were also automated with a backspace strike-over

key. Fast typists became even faster on the rock-solid typ-

ing consoles. The interruption to reach in and pull apart

jammed keys was gone. Of all the devices released by

IBM in 1961, only the Selectric achieved legendary status.

2011

On April 25, 2011, the last company on earth still manu-

facturing typewriters announced that it was closing its

The Selectric LessonBy Michael Castelluccio, Editor

continued on next page

TECH FORUM

S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 1 I S T R AT E G IC F I N A N C E 67

plant. Godrej and Boyce, located in Mumbai, India, was call-

ing it quits after 60 years. In an article printed on the day of

the announcement, the Daily Mail explained, “Although

typewriters became obsolete in the west, they were still com-

mon in India—until recently.” Godrej and Boyce had only

about 200 machines left in its inventory at the time of the

closing, but the demise had been long and inevitable. “From

the early 2000s onward,” the general manager told the Daily

Mail, “computers started dominating. All the manufacturers

of office typewriters stopped production except us. Until

2009, we used to produce 10,000 to 12,000 machines a year.”

The market had dwindled away to less than 800 a year.

These two milestones mark the passing of a technology

that, in its time, carried the world’s load of business records,

correspondence, and manuscript copy for most of the print-

ed word in the 20th Century. Many consider the Selectric

the penultimate typing machine, and now the last gasp of

the industry has been exhaled in one of the most wired

places on earth.

CHURN

There’s an important lesson in these historic events. It was

expressed in a metaphor centuries ago by the Pre-Socratic

Greek philosopher Heraclitus. He observed that you can’t

step into the same stream twice. As soon as you step out on

to the shore, the stream has changed. Heraclitus extrapolat-

ed this out to all of reality, concluding that the only thing

that doesn’t change in the world is change itself.

The process of ceaseless change in technology also is fre-

quently described with a water metaphor. But rather than

the steady, contemplative flow of the ancient philosopher’s

stream, reality in the tech world “churns” in a process that

generates the new from the old. The next best thing often

doesn’t just step over established products or procedures:

It crushes them in its forward march. Those who carry a

pocketful of thumb drives might smile as they recall the

five-inch floppy disks of the first personal computers, but

they will, no doubt, seem as comical to those who will uti-

lize molecular storage devices in the future.

Economic theorists have a similar notion of change

embedded in the “creative destruction” model of Joseph

Schumpeter. The transitions in business and economic sys-

tems are often not painless, and it seems the process is even

more ruthless with computerized technology. The Selectric

is an impressive collection of elegant engineering solutions,

but you’re only going to find them now in pawnshops,

garage sales, and museums of computer technology. They

have been eliminated.

People today wonder out loud about the future of GPS

devices from companies like TomTom (the Netherlands)

and Garmin (Kansas). Will they survive the waves of smart-

phones and tablets flooding the markets? GPS technology

can work very nicely on the phones and even the new

tablets. Dedicated e-readers are facing the same onslaught

by the same two alternate delivery methods for books. The

phones are more convenient as portable libraries, and the

tablets provide a larger page size and are backlit.

If you trace the history of various technologies, you can

often track the progress by noting the gravestones along the

way. For example, in the distant past, the only people col-

lecting movies were those who owned projection equip-

ment. Then came the videotape players of the VHS/Betamax

wars, and then those went the way of the eight-track, eulo-

gized in garage sales around the country when the DVD

started knocking heads with its new nephew, Blue-ray; then

Blockbuster got busted, and Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes

created jet streams of video delivered in the air. And you can

probably safely bet that these aren’t the last “streams” churn-

ing in this sector of technology.

Change and destruction seem to have become the co-

creationist force in the digital universe. And the destructive

part of the equation seems different in another way. The

planned obsolescence of a previous age has become an

abandoned strategy. Digital devices tend to have fewer mov-

ing parts—flash memory, for example, is replacing the spin-

ning hard drives—and there’s a greater reliance on software

instruction sets than any kind of gears or other machine

parts. The devices don’t wear out—light through fiber is

frictionless, as is wireless—they are, instead, replaced by

the next upgrade of the same thing or an entirely new

technology.

The Selectric is gone, and who would have predicted back

in 1961 that so many would one day be typing airborne

messages with their thumbs on the bus going home? SF

68 S T R AT E G IC F I N A N C E I S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 1

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