What is Technology? Not the i-Phone

I was looking for technology blogs and just about every one I found was talking about Apple's iPhone. Which I thought kind of absurd, since really it's not a new technology, but a new look and feel - and marketing push - of an existing technology.

Technology writing seems far too consumer focused. Cellphones, laptops, DVDs and HD TV are about the extent of what certain people consider technology today. Oh, yeah, and the all-important gaming. Just look at NYTimes.com's technology page. You've stories on all that, a video camera, a printer, and the new digital ad billboards. Wow.

It's really kind of pathetic. On the one hand, yes, these things are new technology, but we hear about them every day, constantly. The media is such suckers for Apple's big marketing push for its new phone, but then every human being seems to be obsessed with cellphones in general (captured in the movie Casino Royale).

Still, while we can get excited about some new gadget that lets us procrastinate or waste time more efficiently, what about the technology we need that's going to save us from Global Climate Change, or another terrorist attack, or keep us healthy and cure diseases? What kind of technologies is our $400 billion-a-year military developing?

Some of this stuff might make it on to the NY Times Science section. There, along with archeology articles, it has some news on emissions cuts in California. That's politics. But what will cut fossil fuel emissions? Technological advances... I suppose there's science involved...

I was perusing Time magazine's review of the Year 2006 the other day, and interestingly, there was next to nothing about technology in it. Politics, people - even celebrities got more coverage than technological advances.

I think it was NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman that I saw quoted as saying he was a technological determinist which I think means someone who believes that technology drives the advancement of civilization, not politics. If he's right, well, then understanding technology is pretty important.

Maybe there's something wrong about our obsession with gadget technology, and our ignorance about more relevant technological advances and progress. As the latter become ever more complicated and important, and we become ever more intrigued by things so mundane and unessential as the iPhone, does some sort of vulnerability present itself? Will there be some point where technology snookers us somehow?