The funny hats, buttons and loot bags are gone. Wearing a software box on your head might have seemed sporty on Monday, but now it just looks stupid. Now, the attendees just roam. They're not really checking out those neat multimedia notebooks. They're actually watching the DVD demo movie the notebooks are playing.
Communicating is no easier.
Modems still lose connections in midstream, and nobody can get a cellular phone signal to the outside world. We're all packing thousands of dollars worth of technology, and we are all trapped. E.T. had an easier time phoning home. The technology arguments have ceased, too. And I actually began to wonder whether that was really Elvis that I saw.