[Prophet Tenebrae]

Yeah - DAMN, whoever wanted to use a mobile phone before the iPhone! You're talking bollocks - yes, the iPhone had a bunch of fancy gimmicks but it's hardly as if smartphones were either languishing in the doldroms beforehand or waiting for the iPhone to break into the popular market, the convergence of multiple technologies on phones has been in the offing for years - to say that somehow the iPhone interface is going to do more than merely change the nature of the interface seems rather counter to both the past and the likely future. Yes, everyone is trying to copy it but you're trying to put it on a pedestal.

As far as things go, the web is probably the best example in modern technology of something facilitating large scale usage of an existing product... the Internet had been used by people for sometime - Academics mostly... as I recall Arthur C. Clarke was bouncing e-mails around before much of this board was even a glint in the milkman's eye - but that was all thrashed out in the ol' command line etc. Actually, it would probably be more apt to say that it was the rise of Windows and the web... because Windows meant that you no longer needed to have an instant recall of a few dozen DOS commands.

Ah, I miss DOS.

And unless I'm misinterpreting - you're quoting the adage about technology requiring 30 years to fully integrate into society.

Also - black holes... it would be a micro black hole that was created. The chances of creating one are astronomical, the chances of it being stable even more so... and of course, if Stephen Hawking is right, it would just evaporate due to Hawking radiation... If not... well.