And I no longer care
When I pick up my phone, in a hurry, to try and get Shazam to wake up in time to listen to the song I am hearing, I wonder if I’ll be very lucky and manage to do that. And then if Shazam isn’t being pissy, as it is now much more than it used to be when it was first introduced, I might get the name the song I was trying to identify. And then, if I choose to buy it, which I often will do because that should be an easy thing to do, I am confronted with a few security questions, not the least of which is what is the CVC number of the registered credit card. The REGISTERED credit card. OK, the CVC number. Now if I have my wallet on me, which is not likely because I’m home watching a TV show that is playing an interesting background sound track, I have to run and find the wallet, and then find the REGISTERED 
credit card and enter the CVC number, which of course I get wrong, and by now the phone has turned itself off and the Shazam connection lost.
What has happened?
Whoever was going to sell me the song (in this particular case it was a $10 album) doesn’t get the sale. I don’t get the song, and if I’m lucky I’ll remember the name, and tomorrow, in the cold light of the day, I’ll buy it, or steal it, from some other source.
Loser loser loser.
Everyone is a loser in this process. Why? Because the (unwanted, and unrequested) security system (OMG – there $10 at stake here—alert the FBI) has forced me to go to another (easily hackable) layer of security. Wow – I feel SO safe now. As if any teen ager couldn’t have broken through this.
But the real problem is not the antiquated “security” system employed by the on-line purchasing system (passwords—really? 1960 security passwords?) The real problem is the phone, that “cognitive” smart device doesn’t have a clue as to who the hell I am or who is holding it. It didn’t look at my eyes, it didn’t sense my finger prints when I was pressing the open app icon of Shanzam or any of the other touches I made – it’s too frakin stupid to do something like that, so it defaults to an even stupider antiquated password system.
This is pathetic. This is embarrassing. We’re supposed to be so high-tech—hey, you can play stupid birds on your phone, how advanced is that? Ouu, your friends on Facebook can see where you are when you make your inane comment about the long line at the ice cream truck. But it doesn’t know who you are.
PA-Thet-IC
2016, a supercomputer chip, a zillion sensors, and it doesn’t know who is holding it. Pa-thet-ic.
And the same geniuses that designed it, are going to use the same chips to design the “smart” systems to drive your car for you. Oh, that’ll be interesting.
“Please enter your PIN for lane changing”
Right.
Cognitive. Really? You’re going to try and convince me my personal companion is cognitive? What’s the color of my hair? How old am I? Where do I live? What’s my pet’s name? Oh! You don’t know that? How come? I’ve told you about a dozen times. Oh, you weren’t paying attention? Why is that? I thought you were cognitive. What’s that, you don’t know the meaning of the word? Gee, why don’t you Google it?
My agent is a dope.