Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The trick that will let you have a conference call from your home phone

Photo: iStock

For the past 12 years, Roger Alton and I have shared this half page like Box and Cox: he writes fortnightly about sport and I write fortnightly about technology. Normally it would be Roger’s turn this week to cover sport.

Unfortunately there isn’t any.

So we’ve reached an agreement. For now, while there’s no longer any sport, I may write a little more frequently about technology. Then, in six months’ time, if there’s no longer any technology, Roger can write more frequently about the newly popular sports: bare-knuckle pugilism, dog-fighting and Mad Max-style steel-cage jousting. He could even throw in some nostalgic pieces recalling the golden age of football, when fans could still afford to throw toilet rolls on to the pitch.

Did you know that since about 1988 you can use your home telephone to talk to more than one person at at a time?

Meanwhile, the best thing I can do is to tell you how to use technology to make it easier to self-isolate. This is a rich field. Almost all technology is designed by introverts for introverts. Over the past few decades, trillions of dollars have been given to the world’s nerds, geeks and box-bedroom reclusives to remake the world in a way they would choose — which generally means the ability to do anything you need without having to make eye contact. If you are slightly on the spectrum, most technology is much more exciting than if you are wildly sociable.

This very nerdiness means that technologists and tech companies in general are astonishingly bad at explaining technology to people unlike them. As a result, there are many potentially useful technological ideas which are hugely underused.

Did you know, for instance, that you can use your home telephone to talk to more than one person at once? This has been possible since about 1988.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in